3 posts tagged “movies”

Things have gotten extremely busy (comparatively) these past few weeks thanks to a new project/demo we're putting together for a Chinese company. This is all good but I've been less motivated to spend my day in an office due to the incredibly fine weather as of late.

Most of the difficultly, project-wise, has been finalizing requirements. So, you build what you think you need but then expect some of that work to be wasted.

Anthony, a young Momoist who've we've met in Japan, San Jose, Vegas, but never in Seattle, came by our house on Friday. We watched/sampled a bunch of J-Pop concert videos as well as Evangelion 1.11, on Blu Ray. Dinner was nabe, not really appropriate for the warm weather but almost always good. Plus we had moon cakes. (Moon cakes are kind of like Christmas cookies that you do like them once in a while but wouldn't want to eat them all year long.)

Bedtime was around 3AM for me, so Hitomi and I spent most of Saturday morning in bed. Worked on my Chinese project at home: Not sure why I felt compelled to spend the day hacking. Maybe because of the weather. Didn't want to cook, though we had tons of leftovers, so went out to Malay Satay Hut.

Sunday was Tim's birthday. I rented a bunch of movies. Tim, mom and I watched one. Alone on the Pacific was about the first single-handed sailor from Japan, Horie Ken'ichi. Movie probably exaggerated and changed the order of events of his 94 day sail, although I'm sure there were numerous challenges. (Note: Ruriko Asaoka is incredibly sexy. Would not leave Japan with a sister like that!) Then I spent the evening hacking away at JBoss deployment configuration.

Monday I spent dealing with more configuration issues. JEE is like that.

Tuesday (and until Friday) I went into work, either the whole day or part of the day.

I went out two a couple of movies. First was 9 (3D animation). Animation-wise, and aesthetically, it was quite well done. However, it lacked pacing or something like it, since it was mostly scene after scene of crazy rescues and fights. Too much action and you stop caring. I was with Ian, and he suggested the movie, so walking out of the theater, I wasn't too sure if I should say anything bad about it. (It's easy to complain and that ruins the fun for people who enjoyed the movie.) But still, there were really good aspects.

By the way, I'm not big on celebrity voice acting for animation. Sure, it sells tickets, but well-known celebrities aren't necessarily qualified for voice acting. And rather than the celebrity sounding like the character, the character tends to be changed to fit with the voice actor. And celebrities are often famous because of how they look not because of their acting skill.

Eureka Seven (anime) was much more entertaining. There was a one-time screening on Thursday at Pacific Place, though it was unfortunately sparsely attended. The story was really too intricate and complicated for its own good. (Anime can either be inextricable or overly dense, it seems.) Fortunately, the character interactions were good and animation and action was high quality. The dub actors were good but the writing wasn't agreeing with my ears. Dub translation scripts often add extra words, so dialog often seems unnaturally wordy.

I managed to get out for a swim September 22nd. Water's been getting colder but, hey, mid-eighties temperatures should not be squandered.

Friday I left work early and shopped Uwajimaya. We had Sanma Hiraki, a fall-appropriate fish. If I stopped eating animal meat I'd probably switch to eating fish like this. These guys are really oily, which you'd think would appeal to Americans, but there's just something about oily fish which Americans don't like I guess. Plus, Hitomi made a bunch of interesting side dishes.

I watched two movies that night, since they were due Saturday. First was The Warlords, which was an interesting take on history but seemed to drag on. Spoiler: Everyone dies. Then I saw a classic movie, The Great Escape, which was a lot more entertaining but since it's based on a real event, it was sad at the end. Spoiler: Almost everyone dies. So I get to bed really late.

And then there's this hike the next day. It was a Sakura-con guest relations hike, plus a couple of friends of friends. It was just a short trip to Baring, then Barclay Lake and back again. We manage to start a fire out of embers left over from a fire pit. It kept us warm. I can't say the mountain (Baring) impressed as much as the glaciers on Rainer from Paradise but it was less than half the drive and a much easier hike.

I went to Ian's birthday party in the evening. Since Ian is poor, people were asked to bring their own food, though he did have some chicken, rice, and sauce but maybe enough for about 5-6 people. (About 15+ came.) I got him a massage gift certificate, since he walks around like a crippled old man with bad posture, and maybe a massage might help some. (Exercise would help him, but he's not too into anything intense enough to make much difference.) I pick on him some but he has lots of nice *other* friends, okay? And his mom's a yoga instructor, so it's not as if he couldn't do yoga for free.

Sunday (today): Slept in, or tried to. We have an obnoxious (old?) cat who doesn't let us sleep in on Sundays it seems. Left a little late for a football game. To this fan, football's much more interesting than baseball. I tried explaining the game to Hitomi but she got busy with crocheting and ignored the second half. Nintendo had a suite for this game, which included free food and drinks. It must have cost about $200 per person, times about 20 or so. Seahawks lost, of course, but I enjoyed the game.

We biked back: Beautiful weather again.

Haven't gotten to writing about all the movies I've gone to over the past few weeks. I'm not much of a movie critic. And anyway, many of the movies I've seen might not get released here so what's the point suggesting them?

The thing I've come to know recently, and perhaps this is widely known, is that many filmmakers rely on personal financing to make their movies. For example, I heard at a SIFF screening, the Korean director of Breathless sold home to make his movie. And I found out on Adam Carolla's Podcast, even Francis Ford Coppola, who is the director of the #1 movie of all time, still has to personally finance his own movies. He himself financed his latest movie, Tetro.

This year we saw a lot of documentaries. Usually we pack the schedule with Asian movies and then we never see them.

List of movies seem: (I think one short film block is missing from here...)

		The Hurt Locker HURT3009A, 1 ticket May 30, 2009 4:00 PM, 130 min Uptown Cinema User Reviews |
		Miao Miao MIAO0209A, 2 tickets Jun 2, 2009 7:00 PM, 83 min Egyptian Theatre User Reviews |
		Kabei—Our Mother KABE0309A, 2 tickets Jun 3, 2009 6:45 PM, 132 min SIFF Cinema User Reviews |
		The Red Race REDR0809A, 2 tickets Jun 8, 2009 7:00 PM, 70 min SIFF Cinema User Reviews |
		Breathless BREA1109A, 2 tickets Jun 11, 2009 9:15 PM, 130 min SIFF Cinema User Reviews |
		Kimjongilia KIMJ1209A, 2 tickets Jun 12, 2009 6:30 PM, 75 min Pacific Place Cinema User Reviews |
		No Age performs “The Bear” BEAB1209E, 2 tickets Jun 12, 2009 9:30 PM, 94 min The Triple Door User Reviews |
		Forever Enthralled ENTH1309A, 2 tickets Jun 13, 2009 3:00 PM, 147 min Cinerama User Reviews |
		Every Little Step STEP1309A, 2 tickets Jun 13, 2009 7:00 PM, 95 min Egyptian Theatre User Reviews |
		Manhole Children TBAC1409A, 2 tickets Jun 14, 2009 9:00 PM, 117 min SIFF Cinema User Reviews |

I've been keeping up with my cycling. Hitomi was gone to Anime North (Toronto) and the weather's been fine. I spent Saturday riding to five different movie theaters for five different films at SIFF: A personal record for movies watched in one day? Sunday, I got Kevin to ride sixty miles, some of it quite hilly, and he did an adequate job. Monday I visited my parents and went to the Kubota gardens for the first time.

Tuesday, although Hitomi had just returned, I went out (again!) to my usual Tuesday night ride. The weather's finally gotten good. And I went to another movie that night.

I led a Seattle Bicycle Club ride last Wednesday. I was asked by the ride coordinator to lead, although I hadn't been on more than a few rides, and actually wasn't a member. (I did send in my dues a few weeks back.) The ride was a success. Here was the route. Our club did an interesting thing I think Cascade should do as well. At every corner, we had the rider behind me stay behind to make sure the remainder of the group made a turn. I would shout "Corner!" (actually I politely asked somebody) and somebody stayed behind. Usually what happens is the ride leader has to wait after every light and turn for everybody else to arrive, but instead I could keep going without concern.

Thursday was a day of rest. Plus, I wanted to actually see my wife before she left on a trip. Unfortunately, Thursday for Hitomi was mostly packing.

Friday, bought an oyster knife by Dexter Russel. Dexter Russel makes commercial-grade kitchenware. I have one of their knives I bought at a fishing store for my kayak trip a few years back. Hitomi wanted bought an oyster knife for her trip for consuming oysters on the beach, obviously. And later that day, I looked at Santoku Knives by the same company. For some reason I want to buy some new knives, though the knives I have are still adequate (actually Henckles), there's something exotic about Japanese-style cutlery. And I really like the utilitarian look and quality that goes into commercial products.

Saturday was another movie day, though this time I only went to three movies. Maybe sometime I'll write a couple of reviews? For foreign movies, I really like Asian movies the best. Even if an Asian movie isn't so good story-wise, it's usually aesthetically pleasing. I got back early to cook dinner and prepare food for an ambitious ride Sunday.

The initial plan was to ride about 80 miles inside of Mount Rainer Nat' Park, for a total of 8,000 feet of climbing. The weather unfortunately did not cooperate, so we turned back earlier. Most of the group ascended just the first 4,000 feet, from outside of the park to the Paradise visitor center. The visitor center was just a few hundred feet under snow level, under fog, and under rain. Although the ascent was surprisingly easy, the descent was difficult in the cold. Downhill was steep, requiring careful control of speed while maintaining muscle control of the hands and legs. Speedy controlled descents require leaning, which are difficult cold. Under a rain jacket and knit hat, I was listening to music which kept my morale up. Eventually, it got less steep and warmer and less rainy.

We all had a slice of pie and returned home.