Hey all! How've you been? Whatcha been up to? I've been playing Freecell. My streak is currently at 168 wins. Fantastic.

I have also been buying toys and DVDs, as usual. Lately I've been on a Transformers kick in terms of toys -- in the past week, I have added four new ones to my collection (bringing my TF count to a grand total of six, or eight if one includes Bootleg Prime and a Go-Bot I have had since I was four years old). I think I will probably stop with them whenever this Megatron is released in a month or so, though. I also picked up a few TMNT figures at Wal-Mart this weekend -- two because they were reduced to $2 each, one because it came with a TMNT PC game. The game is kinda crappy.

I picked up way too many DVDs yesterday -- The Goonies, Team America: World Police, The Last Samurai, Secretary, Meet Joe Black, and Lost in Translation. They were only $5 each, but that's still more than I like to spend during a given outing. Seriously, I am not buying any more DVDs until I have at least put a significant dent in my current queue. Knock on wood.

So, now I will briefly review the movies I have watched thus far this year in an average of five sentences or less. (more...)

Becky is right -- if those DVDs mentioned here had been $4, I probably wouldn't have put them back. (They were actually only $6 -- maybe even $5 -- but oh what a difference a dollar makes!) $4 price tags were enough to get me to pick up Election, Pump Up the Volume, and The Island of Dr. Moreau at Best Buy last week, and I've never even heard of the second and have heard horrible things about the latter. But I like Christian Slater and Moreau is one of those movies that I knew would sooner or later come into my possession simply in virtue of the subject matter, so I figured I wasn't likely to find a better price. Besides, even if it's terrible, the presence of Ron Perlman, Marlon Brando, and Fairuza Balk make it worth a viewing in my book. And Election is just hilarious.

So the other weekend we found this while cleaning the basement. It doesn't work anymore -- it was apparently a promo thing given to my dad by some drug company many years ago -- and there doesn't appear to be any way of replacing the batteries, so it would otherwise have been thrown away... but I have other uses for it. Any guesses as to what I could use it to represent? Read on for a hint... (more...)

Towards the middle of November, I was thinking maybe my online DVD collection count wouldn't make it to 400 after all before the end of 2006, but my initial speculations have proven incorrect -- the arrival of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm today did indeed push the collection into the next level.

And for the record, those of you who think that Batman Begins is the best Batman feature film are totally wrong. Totally.

You know, I wonder if somehow having a comment spam filter attracts spam comments. I mean, WordPress and Akismet appear to do a really good job of catching them, but I never got this many spam messages back on the old Blog of Wes. (There's no sense in reading the old page since I ported all of the old entries over to here, but if you're interested you can take a gander at the old layout :)) Perhaps the programs are lying, in order to exaggerate their performance and effectiveness!

Aaaand on a note somewhat related to that last comment, VOTE TOMORROW! Assuming that you have not already. I'm planning to vote Democratic across the board... and it really sucks that I feel like I have to do that, but I think that's the extent to which the political scene has been polarized as of late. And have you seen some of the Republican National Committee advertisements for this campaign? They're like weird fake campaign ads on a sketch comedy show! Insanity.

Also, given yesterday's international news, I totally want to read this book. Could be interesting!

The Prestige is pretty good stuff, by the way. A lot of the reviews that I've read have called it a challenging and confusing film, but I honestly didn't get any of that -- it seemed fairly easy to understand to me, especially since it goes out of its way to explain the twist ending at the end, replete with flashbacks. Anyway, I wouldn't call it a masterpiece (I probably couldn't rank it among even my top 20 or 30 favorite films, though I'd certainly add it to my DVD collection for $7.50 or less), but it's definitely a great film and makes for a good theater experience. It's certainly the best movie I've seen at the cinema this year! But then, the only other movies I've seen thus far are V for Vendetta and Silent Hill, so that's not saying too much.

Finally, the latest Neurotically Yours cartoon from Ill Will Press -- entitled "Useless Software" -- is quite funny. "It all just says pissed off and a date next to it!" Go watch. 🙂

I have watched a lot of movies during the past couple of weeks! Here are my reviews, in an average of five sentences or less. If you want lengthy plot summaries and synopses, you can just pop over to the IMDb links and check 'em out there!

City of Rott: Neat animation, but the film is basically a seven-minute Flash movie that drags on for 11 times as long, making it a really repetitive and boring and frustrating movie -- especially since the few decent ideas in the movie are wasted. Full review available on Scary-Crayon.

Average thus far: 2 sentences per review. (2/1)

Queen of the Damned: As I watched this movie on DVD, I said aloud to myself, "Man, this sure isn't as good as Interview With the Vampire!" Then I burst out laughing at the understatement -- this is nowhere near as good as Interview. In fact, it is fucking terrible... which I already knew because it is one of two movies (the other being Willard) that I actually made the trek to Milford to see alone during my undergrad years. So why'd I buy it? Well, it's like the quintessential bad vampire movie -- it's like a parody of bad campy low budget vampire movies, except worse because it actually takes itself somewhat seriously and had a budget and name stars and popular bands on its soundtrack (et cetera). And it's based on the writings of one of the greatest writers of vampire fiction ever!

To be fair, though, Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned novel was waaaay worse. I hated that book.

Average thus far: 5 sentences per review. (10/2)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: You know, if I had seen this movie when I was 8 or 9, I probably would've thought it was the perfect adventure film -- it would've been like my Raiders of the Lost Ark. As it is, I thought it was kinda stylish and cool, but otherwise fairly shallow.

Average thus far: 4 sentences per review. (12/3)

The American Astronaut (Thanks, Ossabelle! :)): This was a neat little indie sci-fi flick with some quirky set pieces and cool musical numbers. Ultimately I think it suffers from a shallow plot and a lackluster antagonist, but that wouldn't stop me from recommending it to folks in the mood for, well, a neat little indie sci-fi flick with some quirky set pieces and cool musical numbers! 😉

Average thus far: 3.5 sentences per review. (14/4)

The Ring: I'm not sure whether the Japanese version was better or not -- somehow I'm thinking that it suffered from the same flaws that plague this one -- but this movie was fucking dumb and I have no idea how it has a 7+ rating over at IMDb. Evil videotapes and haunting telephone calls and pale little girls with too goddamned much hair (not to mention suicidal horses) are stupid, not scary.

Average thus far: 3.2 sentences per review. (16/5)

Flight of the Navigator (Thanks, Molly! :)): This is definitely one of the best family films I've ever seen -- a cute and thoroughly enjoyable (and oddly touching) film about a little boy who just wants to go home and befriends an alien ship in the process. I think the movie would've been a little better if the ship hadn't lost its mind and turned into Pee-wee Herman (seriously) after scanning the boy's brain, but it was still very good stuff.

Average thus far: 3 sentences per review. (18/6)

Monster: Okay, I'll admit it -- this tragic love story had me getting all teary-eyed at the end. Excellent performances (though I'm not sure I'd call any of them Oscar-worthy) and a poignant story rendered all the more heartbreaking because of its factual basis earn Monster a very high recommendation from me. Also, Christina Ricci has never been cuter.

Final average: 3 sentences per review -- w00t! (21/7)

All for now, then -- ja ne, minna-san. 🙂