Reel Reviews

Bad Words -- Here's a mean one, and delightfully so. Jason Bateman's character is exactly what I wish I could be; alas, some touch of diplomacy is necessary in this world. In a movie, though, a guy that dickish can be hilarious, and Bateman's Guy is just that. I'm wavering only slightly in this review, because one can argue that the movie does pull its punches a bit--but not in any significant way that pulls any of the principals out of character. Also, there's a minor fallacy in the movie's premise: there's no particular need to have rules keeping adults out of spelling bees, as most adults are atrocious spellers. Regardless, this film is a ton of fun, as long as you're not a wilting flower about the language. Check it out.

Reel Reviews

Mr. Peabody and Sherman -- Here's a cautionary tale about all these nostalgia based remakes we've seen these past several years: if you don't get everything just right when you're competing with someone's memories, the memories win. So it goes with this film. A lot of what's here is good, but when the movie misses the mark--for example: the voice for Sherman is nowhere close to the original--the discrepancy takes the viewer right out of the moment. That's a tough tightrope to walk, and why most nostalgia movies don't succeed. On its own merits, this flick tends to be very clever--they seem to get all the historical facts right--but there's a lot of dumb sprinkled in, too. If not for its attachment to an already known property, I'm not sure this script would have been produced. Put it all together and the ultimate product merits the so-so mark--as much for unfulfilled potential as anything else.

Reel Reviews

Godzilla -- (2014) Mild spoiler alert: some of the stuff in this movie doesn't make much sense. In other words, it's a monster movie. Go figure. It may be nonsense, but it's entertaining nonsense. There is perhaps a little too much teasing going on before the big guy starts fucking shit up old school, but I think this flick ultimately delivers on its promises. (The ending of the climactic battle, for sure, delivers quite a jolt.) It's somewhat ridiculous to judge these movies on any criterion other than, do you have a good time watching it? I certainly had a good time watching this one, so it's a go from this end. Enjoy.

Sour Notes

I don't remember things very well these days, for various reasons. That's why I like having the ability to jot down notes when they pop into my mind. Keeping the ideas that come to me by recording them on the fly, or using a simple note pad to keep handy information handy, is really useful to me.

Thus, I've found the iOS app Notes very useful these last few years, first on my iPod touch, and recently on my iPhone. What I really liked was the fact that every time I synced my device, my latest notes would automatically update into Apple's Mail application. Changes to old notes would similarly update onto the computer, so that new info or ideas that I had had while on the go would then be live and available when I sat down to work at the laptop.

Well, screw all that, said the increasingly clueless Apple. A few weeks ago I made the grotesque mistake of "upgrading" my macbook's operating system to OS X Yosemite, which is turning out to be perhaps the most hideously awful iteration of the Mac environment ever. And among its many abortions is the truly bizarre revision that makes Notes (now in its own separate desktop app) virtually impossible to sync. I've tried everything indicated by Apple's help documentation, short of enabling iCloud--no, I don't want you to have complete access to my devices; screw you and your shitty iCloud--and nothing will get my damn notes to update.

I don't usually agree with the plain, on the face of it, overly simplistic analysis that most folks tend to wallow in. But with Apple, all those people who say that things have really gone downhill since Steve Jobs died may be on to something. Notes was fine as it was; I would enter a note on my phone, and--bam--it would just appear there on my laptop after a sync, and I'd never have to think about it. This seems like a really simple thing to accomplish; hell, it didn't even need to be accomplished--it was already done. All they had to do was not screw it up...and sure enough, they screwed it up. Yosemite's other flaws--slow performance and memory hogging, poor visual design, program updating issues--are bad enough; screwing up a minor program like Notes, which was already perfect the way it was...well, there are reasons why I've long been off the Apple bandwagon, far enough off that I have had no inclination for a long time to buy any Mac hardware other than after market. But now I'm starting to consider the possibility of just saying screw the whole thing and finding a new computing paradigm. Windows remains dreadful, but...Linux, perhaps? Has it come to that? Maybe.

Apple used to be the greatest thing ever in computing and its associated implementations. I stayed with them through the dark days and never really wavered in my belief that their stuff was the best that was out there. But Yosemite is just plain shit, and these days Apple is looking moldy and full of worms. It may be just a matter of time before everyone concludes the thing is simply rotten to the core.

As If You Need More Things To Read...

For a long time now, I've had this idea about starting a blog. Not this blog, not blowing it up and starting all over again; I mean starting a different blog, something that had a different focus from my random musings about life, or what movie I just saw, etc. What I've been thinking about was a blog about sports, one where I dish out some brutal truth about the world of sports as I see it.

Well, I finally got around to getting that ball rolling. This past week I launched The Disgruntled Fan Report and posted the first essay, about the new college football playoff system. (For the record, I'm agin it!) Right now the site is in a most primitive state. I'm working on some banner art for the top of the page, to at least make things look distinctive. Right now it's a free site on WordPress's servers, but I'm expecting to eventually take it live on its own domain on its own hosting, which will help me gussy up the thing. For the moment, the chief focus is on grinding out copy.

I'm going to try to make this a weekly thing, a site where I issue at least one column per week on whatever seems to be the best topic out there at the moment. This will require a certain amount of discipline on my part--always a dicey prospect--and an ability to consistently come up with good ideas. I believe one idea a week is not too big a challenge; I've already written this coming week's piece, and the next week's work is now on the drawing board. I wrote commentaries on a similar schedule on my very first website back in the day, and that didn't run out of steam until well after a year, so I'm hopeful that the new project, with it's narrower focus (easier to stay current and relevant that way), will last at least that long. Hopefully, it will be a long-term thing--and maybe, just maybe, it will somehow grow into another career.

So if you've got a taste for some quality sports commentary, click on over to The Disgruntled Fan Report. I will greatly appreciate your patronage.

Reel Reviews

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 -- Everybody else seems to be on board with this go-around as better than the first set. I'm not so sure. I can fairly vividly remember certain scenes from those earlier movies; I can't say much the same about the first in this series. And while this and its predecessor are certainly entertaining in the moment, it is the long term impact that makes for a great movie, or even a very good one. I liked this flick, but I'm just not sure how much. I guess you're on your own here.

Reel Reviews

Noah -- If it had been all theology, this movie would have been a dud. With the human dimensions added to the story--which is already at its core a pretty good story--the equation changes in this flick's favor. It still suffers somewhat from its bible story origins--pieces of the narrative feel like those children's books based on the scriptures that your weird aunt or uncle gives you for a birthday present--but the overall effect of good performances, interesting direction, and universal themes make the movie worth the effort.

Structural Change

If you've stumbled across this site in the past, and are coming back now for some benighted reason, you may be noticing a change in the way the Reel Reviews are being posted. No longer will individual movie reviews be organized according to the old habit of lumping everything together by alphabetical title. Now, each individual review will be its own post.

This make sense on a number of levels, and the change should have been implemented much sooner. For one thing, individual posts makes each of the reviews substantially more search friendly. While organizing all of the reviews alphabetically allowed for easier browsing of reviews that were not the object of the original search--just scroll through the list and find something interesting--the plain fact is that anyone reading this site probably is not really that interested in scrolling through that long list (especially under popular alphabetical titles, as with the 'S' or 'M' titles). Also, individual posts make creating the links in the sidebar substantially easier. They also make manually date-stamping each post's content unnecessary, since every post is automatically date and time stamped. Overall, I think it will be a cleaner, more efficient way of recording these reviews.

It will still be possible to browse reviews alphabetically, since all review posts will still get the individual letter-appropriate 'Reel Reviews -- ?' tag (where the ? represents a given alphabetical). Just click on the tag from the list in the sidebar and up will pop all the titles under that letter--except in 'most recent' rather than alphabetical order. Plus, individual posts will allow for other tags to be applied to a review, such as 'Comedy' or 'Drama' for an appropriate film, so that a complete list of any genre can be called up just with a click.

As time and gumption permits, I will be converting old, lumped together review posts to individual postings. The 'new-old' posts will get a new date and time stamp, but I'll keep the original 'Posted 00/00/00' date in the copy to distinguish those reviews from more recent stuff. Let's hope this all works out well and makes this database of movie reviews even more useful than ever before.

UPDATE: I've realized after the fact that I can back date posts if I so choose, and I'll do so on the older Reel Reviews posts. But I'll still keep the original 'posted on' dates in the text to easily distinguish old posts from the newer reviews.

Reel Reviews

The Grand Budapest Hotel -- As with every Wes Anderson film, you get quite the avalanche of quirky here. The effect is almost overwhelming at first, but eventually the film settles into its own little groove and winds up telling a story that’s clever, engaging, and ultimately both satisfying and a little bit heartbreaking. I don’t know if this movie would actually pull in anyone who isn’t already an Anderson fan, but for those who appreciate his oeuvre, this one is certainly worth a look.

Reel Reviews

Saving Mr. Banks -- I’m uncertain here. The positive sign could just as easily be a so-so mark. It’s hard to get a handle on whether this is a really good movie or not. This film features fine performances from a lot of really good actors; then again, in at least one case (Emma Thompson in the P.L. Travers role), that good performance makes for a rather unlikeable character. Some of the backstory scenes take way too long to tell their tale--we get the drift long before that curtain closes--and the film drags in those sequences. But those are forgivable lapses, given the overall quality of the thing. I’ll stick with the positive, but I won’t argue very hard against anyone who says otherwise.

Graphic Enhancement

Faithful readers of this blog--as if--have by now gotten used to my long-standing ratings system for movies and books: the + for a positive review, a ~ for a "so-so" review, and a -- for a negative review.

Using those characters for symbols never quite worked. They disappear into the text, and the tilde for a "so-so" character--it's supposed to represent that hand wiggle you do when you somatically describe something as "so-so"--is almost non-existent in some fonts, and is particularly so in MM's preferred font, Raleway.

Thankfully, I've been learning a thing or two about this web stuff, and that includes the wonderful thing called FontAwesome. It's a web-based symbol font that anyone--which includes me--can use to add some easy graphic elements to his website. And now I've done so: you will notice in new reviews that the ratings will feature new icons, as indicated in the reviews summary at the right. The positive and negative reviews still feature plus and minus signs, they're just now more visible icons in a square background. The problem was the "so-so" tilde; no such character exists in FontAwesome at this time. So I had to compromise and choose a new character; from now on, "so-so" reviews will feature a question mark symbol in a circle (oddly, FA features no squared question mark icon). I think this is a good choice, as the question mark represents just as well as the squiggle the indeterminate nature of the "so-so" review.

Old reviews will eventually be updated with the new icons look, as I get time and gumption to do so. (It can be a tedious process going through all those reviews--particularly in really long posts, like the 'S' Reel Reviews.)

That goes for movies. For Recently Read (book) reviews, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I want to keep the symbol system or not. Most recently book reviews have not included any symbol, as I thought it was better to let the narraitive review speak for itself. But I'm still undecided on that. And of course, it may not matter anyway, as I almost never read any books anymore (the curse of being too busy).

So that's the scoop on what's the latest with Malchats Matters. Now maybe I can get moving and actually post something meaningful soon. There's always hope, I guess.

Accomplishment

Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cat Did What?

Well, the day has finally arrived. August 19 marked the publication of the new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cat Did What? Normally, that would not particularly pique my interest, but this ain't normal. This new book includes my story, "The Marks of a Lasting Love" (pg. 172), and it represents my first paid writing effort. Hopefully the first of many to come. The check should arrive sometime in the next month or so; $200 big ones. I could get used to this whole writing thing.

The story tells the tale of the one and only time we tried to give our first cat, WT, a bath, and how that led to me winding up in the emergency room at the local hospital. A good story, if I may say so myself, and it is a sincere tribute to my dearly departed kitty and the legacy that she left in my life.

I had to wait a whole year from submission to today, when the book finally hit the stores. I did get 10 author's copies (all gone now, save one I kept for myself) for free, so that's another good thing about it. I haven't read any of the stories other than my own (so far I've been too busy) but I'm guessing that they're probably all quite entertaining and worth a read.

Better yet, this won't be the only thing I get published this year. Another story, "Giving Thanks for the Big Birds," is scheduled to appear in the November issue of the magazine Watching Backyard Birds. I get a year's subscription to that periodical, no money for publication, but it is another credit, and hopefully will help grease the skids towards more writings of mine gaining acceptance with paying publications. (I currently have drafts of two pieces written right now, with the concepts for two others worked out in my head and partially written up in notes.)

So things be movin'. Let's hope I can sustain the momentum for a while longer. Like, say, the rest of my life. Excelsior.

For The Record, Scale Check

This photo is already a week old. This new low was achieved in the aftermath of my camping trip to Juniper Lake up at Lassen Volcanic National Park. I didn't get a lot of exercise those five days, but apparently I got enough to drop down to a new low mark on the scale. My weight as of this picture was as low as it has been since at least 2003, and almost certainly since 2002. I'm anticipating a bounce back the next time I get a chance to step on the scale, but with a whole month of housecatsitting (2 concurrent gigs) coming up in September, I think I have a chance to power through and really push down to another new low before the fall and winter and the inevitable slippage at the end of the year shows up. Maybe I'll even get down past 270, start seeing some two sixty something numbers at last. We'll see.

For the Record, Scale Check

So the progress continues, at a very mild pace I must say, but still it remains a downward trend. This was actually a shot from this past Tuesday, the 29th, so a couple of days out of date here. The significance of this very minor movement--just one pound below the last "official" low mark (I hit 276.5 back on the 14th, in an "unofficial" measurement)--is that this reading shows progress even after my Disneyland trip of the 17th thur the 21st. It's nice when you can go on a vacation and NOT gain a bunch of weight either then or thereafter. This bodes well for my upcoming trip to Lassen Volcano NP, which starts this Sunday and runs through Thursday, at least (still a little undecided about when I'll get back). I expect more movement downward in the next month or so, then interesting times while I'm housecatsitting in two separate places for the whole month of September. Things might get very interesting.

And it should go without saying at this point, but this does represent my lowest weight...well, probably since I've owned this scale. It's at least the lowest my weight has been since sometime in 2003, maybe even 2002. The only data point I have from that time is a 260 reading the beginning of 2002, and of course I'm still a long way away from that. But it's getting closer.

For the Record, Scale Check

I'm on a roll.

Once again, I've achieved a new low weight. This time it's a relatively large jump, dropping 2 pounds in about a week. This is especially encouraging, since my bike has been in the shop all week, and I won't get it back till Monday--which means I've lost more weight even though I haven't actually exercised since last Saturday. I take this to mean that my steadiness at maintaining the exercise regimen lately has paid off; that is, that my body has gotten used to being in "metabolize mode" and remains there, for the present at least, even without the bolstering benefit of my regular exercise. I'm eager to get the bike back, and get back in the swing of things, to see how far this thing can go before I plateau again.

If I can drop even three more pounds before the end of the month, I'll be deliriously happy with these results.

For the Record, Scale Check

More progress. Incremental progress, to be sure; this is a bare 1.5 pounds below my last lowest weigh in a couple of weeks ago, but this one shows enough movement down to count as a real move for the better.

My resolve to improve upon this number will be tested in the upcoming week; I will not have my bike for a whole week while it's in the shop getting some repairs/upgrades, and I have a giant blister on the bottom of each of my feet (related to the bike thing in a way, but a long story), so it's unlikely I'll be getting much exercise until next week. Of course, next week will see me embark upon a two week housecatsitting gig, at a place with a) a good location with abundant biking trail access and b) a backyard pool for getting some laps in after a ride and/or work. So plenty of exercise on the horizon. Check this space again for further progress before the month is over.

Recently Read

Holy Toledo
Lessons From Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic
by Ken Korach

There is a dilemma that lives somewhere behind this book, one that I have experienced many a time with regards to various things in my own life: when you find something great, do you want to share it with everyone else in the world, or do you prefer to keep this great joy all to yourself?

Holy Toledo by Ken Korach

The answer depends, of course, upon the nature of the great thing. If it’s the music of some hugely talented performer, you’re bound to want to share, since there’s no real way in which your own enjoyment of a song or a musician can be diminished by others enjoying the same work. The same applies, to an extent, with a restaurant that serves great food; certainly, you want others to patronize the place, lest it should otherwise go out of business; yet, you also don’t want the joint to be too crowded during those times when you want a meal for yourself.

And then again, there are those great things that you want to keep all to yourself--or, at least, you don’t particularly care if others get to experience their share of that greatness. You’ll be perfectly happy to keep that personal favorite truly personal, to let that secret joy be your own little oasis in an otherwise desert landscape.

For many sports fans in the Bay Area, that latter sentiment surely holds true for their appreciation of the late Bill King.

Reel Reviews -- N

Napoleon Dynamite (+) -- The concept is probably better than the execution, but this film still deserves attention and applause for its oddball sensibility. The auteurs do not fully commit to the details--it feels like the mid-80s, but some contemporary details sneak in to muddle the time frame--and that just seems sloppy. They also fail to be explicit in their thesis (that it's not so bad to be a geek, if you're strong about it). Subtlety is always welcome in this sledgehammer world, but in this case it might actually undermine the movie's statement. Overall, the movie is funny and offbeat enough to make it worth while, but it still leaves questions in the air. Posted 8/10/04.

Network (+) -- I suspect that this film has suffered with the passage of time. That's typical for old movies, but the wear and tear is more impactful with this flick. I'm sure it was great when it was a biting satire; since subsequent history has turned it into prophecy, the resulting reaction has to be one of sadness. The pseudo-romantic subplot doesn't work so well, but the characterization of the dangers of corporate media make this a primer that every informed citizen should see. Posted 3/7/05.

Never Been Kissed (+) -- So fluffy that you half expect the DVD to float right out of your hand--but nevertheless, very appealing.

For The Record, Scale Check

This probably barely qualifies as an update, but technically I did weigh in at less than my previous low weight, so there it is, in all it's glory. Actually, when I first stepped on the scale, the meter read 280.5, so half a pound less than the above (and 1.5 pounds less than the previous low). Then I stepped back on the scale with my iPhone and snapped the picture...but it was too blurry to use, so I had to try again. And on the third time I stepped up, I got the 281.0 reading. So apparently, while I was trying to take the above picture, I gained half a pound. Hmmm. Not sure how that works, but the point is, this new low register is actually a little more legit than it may seem in direct comparison with the last.

(This is also the second time in recent weeks I've seen a reading below the previous low of 282.0; I didn't count the last low reading because it was only 281.5--too close to the previous low to be outside the margin of error. But given the second reading below the previous mark, this becomes worth posting.)

What's notable here is that this low reading is coming in very early May. That's substantially earlier in the calendar year than I've seen previous low readings come up. The significance of that is, I've still got all of the Summer ahead to winnow that reading down even further. In previous years, I've seen my low point arrive in the middle or at the end of Summer, when there isn't as much time before the cold weather hits to keep the downward trend sustained. Thus, I am quite hopeful that the next few months will see even greater progress ahead.

Reel Reviews -- J

Jabberwocky (+) -- Probably one of the weirdest movies ever made. One of Terry Gilliam's early directorial efforts; it bares a familial resemblance to the earlier Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Darker and stranger than its older cousin, it's an oddly wry story punctuated by occasional moments of hilarity. Posted 6/15/02.

Jackie Brown (+) -- In many ways, a typically Tarantino movie. The crime, the oddballs, the hip dialogue--it's all there. Yet, it's also a quieter, almost softer movie than Q's other works. But don't worry--people still get shot. Oh, yeah, and the soundtrack is the bomb. Posted 7/30/05.

Jacob The Liar (+) -- Funny and sad at the same time; plenty of gallows humor to be found in the WWII Warsaw ghetto setting. Robin Williams does good work as Jacob, a lowly Jew who became the unlikely source of hope for those trapped in the Nazi nightmare. An unfairly overlooked movie.

Reel Reviews

Captain Phillips -- Predictability is not always a bad thing. Knowing the outcome, as with this story, actually helps get the viewer through a pretty intense film. Even so, this movie is loaded with surprises that help make it an engrossing experience: the surprising vulnerability of a giant cargo ship; the filmmakers’ treatment of the Somalis (who are not portrayed as cardboard cutouts, but have depth, humanity, and real character here); the hints that this problem (piracy) may be the unexpected by-product of other problems (including environmental degradation, specifically our collapsing fisheries). Lots of stuff to think about here, but that comes afterward, when all the gripping, gut-wrenching stuff has reached its denouement. Posted 4/27/14.

Catching Up

I went out and finally did it--I got a smartphone. In my case, an iPhone 5c, in a lovely lurid green color (high visibility). I've had it since Thursday. So far, I'm finding it at both delightful and slightly frustrating.

The good:

• more space (16GB vs my old 8GB iPod)--more music available to me, space for all photos, and room to grow
• more features (the biggie: constant connectivity via the network; slightly lower down the list: a better camera, and more newer apps available to me)
• combining my music player with my phone (not trivial; I've missed plenty of calls in the past by not being able to hear my phone due to headphones and music via my iPod--now, of course, my phone is my iPod)

The bad:

• its a slippery little devil (this has been a pox on the iPhone from its first incarnation, and it hasn't changed yet--purposefully, of course, in order to prop up the secondary market for accessories like cases)
• a more baffling interface (iOS 7 is not as user friendly as the earlier operating systems; at first I found using it confusing and non-intuitive, plus the visual design is not as friendly and inviting)
• loss of some settings/data (several of my apps did not transfer their data; I had to restore some from backups, and others needed direct input of info; plus using iCloud [since disabled] killed some features like syncing my contacts directly--not good)

But, as with the ACA, among other things, I'm sure this is a thing that will iron itself out with time. I'm happy to have joined the 21st century (or at least its second decade) with my communications device, at last. I gratefully accept your congratulations. Selah.

Recently Read

Season of ‘42
Joe D, Teddy Ballgame, and Baseball’s Fight to Survive a Turbulent First Year of War
by Jack Cavanaugh

Season of '42
By Jack Cavanaugh

Baseball is, famously, the “talking game,” and a lot of that talking takes place in the pages of books. Each year, the depths of winter bring a longing for the summer game, a desire that directs us to the bookshelf in search of yet another of the delightful “conversations” that are so much a part of the game’s literary tradition.

This year, I chose Jack Cavanaugh’s Season of ‘42 for my January baseball fix. That turned out to be an a major error.

The first warning sign should have been the title: Season of ‘42. That title--so closely echoing earlier efforts, in various media (including David Halberstam’s vastly superior Summer of ‘49)--feels unmistakably unoriginal. To be fair, baseball’s 1942 season is Cavanaugh’s focus, so the title may be considered apt. Certainly, being derivative could be overcome by exceptional execution. Great writing, like winning, cures a lot of ills.

Wordsmith

Another term for Stephen's Dictionary:

Paperize
[verb]
To take your collected, rolled up coin change to the bank and exchange it for paper money; to convert metal money into paper money

Recently Read

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

This book surely must hold the record for longest time it took me to complete reading any work.

Does that mean it’s an awful book? Hardly. In fact, Clarke’s premiere novel delivers an excellent story told with plenty of sharp, witty writing. While the novel has a handful of inherent weaknesses that make for slow going, the bulk of my lengthy fulfillment time derived from my own extenuating circumstances. Had I not chosen to start reading this book just as I was in the midst of working full time (for the first time in ages), and at the same time trying to follow the baseball playoffs, surely this tale of two Georgian gentlemen and their efforts to revive English magic would have held my interest much more deeply than it did.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

The basics of the tale--how the owlish Mr Norrell achieves prominence as the wizard who brings magic back to the forefront of English life (in the midst of the Napoleonic wars, no less); all that comes of the thaumaturgical efforts of both Norrell and his brilliant student, Jonathan Strange; and the consequences of the magicians’ spells, for both themselves and others within their orbit--provide more than enough grist for an imaginative, enchanting literary mill.

Reel Reviews

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter -- For the most part, it's utterly preposterous. It’s difficult to say why this movie’s authors thought this story was a good idea; nothing, beyond some ham-handed symbolism about vampires vs. freedom, indicates why no less an historical figure than Lincoln should personify yet another fairy-tale fight against the undead. And the distortions of history depicted here are not merely conceits, but vaguely insulting; as if the true story of the events depicted, such as the battle of Gettysburg, need to be fictionalized to make them extraordinary. I’m not sure what they were thinking, and I don’t really have a desire to waste any more of my brainpower pondering that puzzle. Follow that lead and skip this one. Posted 1/8/14.