Its about time stylized films are getting made (Sky Captain)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a thoroughly fun film. It’s seems many people willfully don’t understand it. This isn’t a movie were Luke Skywalker cries about Princess Leia’s broken nail. This is a stylized, plot driven, sci-fi action flick in the tradition of the 1930’s Flash Gordon serial films. Paltrow and Law performed nearly flawlessly in their roles. Their acting is wooden and one-dimensional because the characters they are playing are intentionally wooden and one-dimensional. It’s part of the style of the movie. It amazes me some people can’t handle a full length stylized movie, but love even more heavily stylized (and damn near pointless) music videos. Turn off your need to see Luke Skywalker learning about himself when you go see this movie. It’s not a character development movie. It’s a movie that is just fun, which is exactly what it is meant to be. Ok, I’m done with the rant. LOL
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow succeeds where the Star Wars Prequels fail. Sky Captain creates a whole world through concise story telling, and a clear use of visual and acting styles. Star Wars uses a similar approach, but not nearly so well because the stories a just too crowded and compressed; with way too many characters. However, I must credit Lucas with one thing. Without the Star Wars Prequels, Sky Captain prolly would not have been created. I hope this is the beginning of a new movie era were more stylized films are made. I wouldn’t want every movie to be heavy on style and short on character development. However, for some stories, style is more important than character, and I hope Hollywood can now make such films with that in mind. Sky Captain is one example of just one style. The are many other styles out there just waiting to be explored!

Friday busy day

The sail boat race on Friday evening was a disaster for our team, Spitfire. We got a late start, had bad positioning on the course, and our main competitor performed flawlessly. Spitfire was in the lead in the racing series, but because we performed so badly in this final race, we lost the lead in the series. Chalk up another 2nd place in yet another racing series. Yeah, I’m disappointed.

After showering and changing, I picked up my g/f around 9:00pm. Instead of going to the Cheesecake Factory, we went to a good Persian restaurant just down the street from her place. It was nice to have a relaxing diner in a quiet atmosphere.

After dinner, we met up with Jenn and Miriam in downtown San Jose at the Mission Ale House. Miriam picked the spot where we were supposed to meet up. So, while my g/f and I are waiting for her at the Mission Ale House, I get an apologetic call from her. Well, when she told me Mission Ale House, she actually meant Tied House. Well, either way, Jenn and her finally joined us at the Mission Ale House. :-) However, we didn’t stay more than 45 minutes. For some reason, the drinks all tasted like cough syrup that night. Yuk. So, we met up with friends from the French Union (Miriam’s former co-workers from HP, who all happen to be French and who all live and hang out together, so we call them the French Union). It was at this place called The Vault. It’s a little posh, and a bit yuppie-ish. Those aren’t complaints, at least, not to me. But those are complaints to Jenn. We tried to go to this other place afterwards, but stopped off at this one Irish pub instead. We kinda got stuck there, just cracking each other up, laughing our heads off about whatever (Bee-nod). We even got a double laugh snort…one from Jenn that trigger one from Miriam. Bonus! LOL

At about 1:30am, Jenn and Miriam went to eat and meet up with some of Jenn’s friends, including Bee-nod. My g/f and I called it a night.

Long day ahead

Well, I got up early for work today, so I can get off early, so I can go sailing on my friend's sailboat in a "beer can race" up in Oakland (45 to 70 minute drive depending on traffic). Hopefully the race is short because I need to get back to San Jose to met up with my g/f to go to the Cheesecake Factory at 9:00pm. Then from there, we will head down to meet up with some friends in downtown San Jose at a club. ::takes a breath:: I hope I'm not getting too old to keep up this kind schedule. I couldn't make it last time I tried; almost, but not quite. To be continued... lol

I can feel the religious fueled oppression building

We are going down the path of religious fueled oppression in the U.S. Christian fundamentalist (neoconservative) have been positioning themselves in key positions all over government at all levels. They are intolerant to change (improvement) and lack the ability to accept others who do not share in their brand of religion. They purposefully (wrongfully) imagine that our country was founded on their ideas of religion. Our country was founded on Free Mason principles, not fundamentalism. From what I understand, Free Mason principles involve religious tolerance, with an understanding that no single believe system is the only way. This is where the 1st Amendment comes from in the first place.
Despite the religious backlash against the progress that our country has made in the past four decades, people are still removing themselves from the churches at an ever increasing pace. Two increasing minorities are forming: People who don't believe in religion but believe in God; and atheists. Sooner or later, people in these developing minorities are going to have to defend their rights as a group. As the neoconservatives continue to consolidate power, their methods, goals and actions will grow more oppressive, with more overt bigotry. This is the same path that the Nazi party followed as it slowly took over the Germany government under Hitler.
I'm confident that the U.S. population and political landscape are too diverse to allow this to go too far. But even what is happening now might be considered going to far. I know the acceptance of the bigotry I've seeing so far is damn annoying to me.

Barry Bonds flashes a smile

My dad and I had great seats only 4 rows up from the dugout.  He's the big Giants fan, so I treated him to Sat's game.  From our seats (before the game) I walked down to just get a shot of the players in the dugout, but the usher held me back. I was like, "ookay".  He finally let me go down, but told me,

"Be ready. Have your camera on; have your finger on the button to take the shot. Walk down, take the shot and come right back up." 

Again, I'm wondering what's the big deal, but I comply.  I walk down to find Barry Bonds chatting. OK, so that's the big deal!  Barry is right here!  Without hesitation, I snap this shot.  Just as I'm snapping the shot, I notice Barry glance very quickly at my camera, then look back at the person he was talking to.  Besides looking at my camera for that split second, he ignored me, but I thanked him anyhow.  I then got a picture of the dugout that I originally wanted.

I didn't know Barry Bonds actually smiled at the camera during his glance until I zoomed-in on the photo on my photo-printer's preview screen!  How the hell did he time the glance and smile so well?!  I didn't even know when I was going to snap the shot myself!  Wow.  So, now I have a picture of Barry Bonds smiling at me, and all I wanted was a picture of the dugout.  lol  Hey, Mr. Bonds, thanks again; my dad loves the photo! 

Giants Game; Bonds #701

I can tell my dad really liked seeing the Giants at SBC Park. This was his first time seeing his favorite team play in person...and his first time at SBC Park. We got to see Barry Bonds hit home run #701. To bad we didn't get to see the 700 (which happened last night). Oh well, it was a treat either way. The Giants did lose though. :( The Giants pitcher (Shmitz I think) started out strong, but faded in the 4 inning; first allowing a tie game, them giving up 4 more runs later.
We had great seats, 4 rows up from behind the Giants dugout near home plate. I would've liked being on the visitor site so I could heckle the Padres a bit more. ::evil grin:: I had a lot of fun at the game. I'm glad my dad did too.
After the long drive back to my parents' home from the game, I'm beat. I might visit my cuz and her family later. They live a few of blocks away (but not quite close enough to walk). But for now, I just wanna relax/recoop.