Saturday, February 22, 2003

An American

NOTE: This was copied from a post at Infoceptor. I did not write this (although I wish I did).

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
So, an Australian dentist wrote the following to let everyone know
what an American is, so they would know when they found one.

An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America, they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that, he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army twenty years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, 2001, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

Americans welcome the best --- the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes. But they also welcome the least.

The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your
tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the
homeless, tempest-tossed. These, in fact, are the people who built
America.

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11,
earning a better life for their families. I've been told that the World
Trade Center victims were from at least thirty other countries, cultures,
and first languages --- including those that aided and abetted the
terrorists.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did
General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao, and every blood thirsty tyrant in the history of the world. But, in doing so, you would just be killing yourself, because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit and freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
My Review of Chicago

Loved it.

The song and dance numbers were beautiful, I really loved all of the characters, and it really made me question the United States Justice system. Its sad to think that all the guilty needs to get off is to give the ol' Razzle Dazzle.

I can't wait to get it on DVD :).

HOWEVER: It did seem a bit unrealistic at times. There were times when the prosecution should have objected, or pointed something out, or SOMETHING like that. The ending was nice, it was a bit fun rooting for the guilty :).

4.5/5. Really great movie :). I'm not gonna say uber though.

Oh, and I saw it with a date. Bye now!

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

My Review of Daredevil

MAY BE SOME SPOILERS:

Daredevil > Spiderman.

However:

Daredevil < Spiderman.

Confused? Good. You should be.

When it comes to the characters and the interactions, then Daredevil wins. Bullseye is pissed at Daredevil (Daredevil made him miss :)), Daredevil loves Electra, and Bullseye is hired to kill Electra and her father. There's a saying regarding characters: The more characters you have, the more ways you have to figure out how they react to each other. Kingpin played a very minor role in the movie, but he got the big finale fight scene. Besides, that's the Kingpin's method: He doesn't fight unless the fight is brought to him.

Daredevil is clearly a very flawed character. This is flawed as in he is a shade of grey, not as in he is a bad character. He is tormented, he seeks vengence when justice fails. All of the codes of conduct that superheros supposedly follow, he ignores. (IE: He lets his initial target, an aquitted rapist, get run over by a subway train) Regardless of the whole superpowers thing (the gimmie of the movie), this is a person that really would exist, and likely does (again, regardless of the superpowers).

Bullseye is just fun. You know he's evil, but he's the evil that makes the movie great. A hero is only as great as his villian. This time, the villian comes close to ustaging the hero.

Electra wasn't amazing, but did pretty good as a love interest. And the Kingpin was great when he was in the scenes (not very often).

Some great cinematography, pretty good fight scenes, and many different flying objects turned into weapons also contribute to its greatness.

The problem with the movie lies within its writing. There weren't enough scenes with Kingpin in it, some of the jokes were a bit corny, and the general story had some problems. Also, there was a bit too much humor in it for a dramatic movie, which is what it would've been beautiful as. Spiderman was able to get a niche and run with it.

In review:

Daredevil's characters and general feel > Spiderman's characters and general feel.

Daredevil's overall composition < Spiderman's overall composition.

I WOULD choose Daredevil over Spiderman. ESPECIALLY considering that the second half of Spiderman basically sucked.

Here's the Ebert and Roeper review of it: Click Here.

I give it 4/5 stars. Had a lot of potential considering the characters, but the script failed to meet the requirements.

Saturday, February 15, 2003

Now my weekly post :).

My birthday was fun. Daredevil was fun, could've been better, but Collin Ferrel (Bullseye just OWNED!

"I missed? I never miss!"

Ben Afflec was good as Matt Murdock, Jennifer Garner did good as Electra, and Michael Clark Duncan was great as Kingpin.

Oh, and Kevin Smith made an appearance. Cool.

I got:

A Palm Zire (mini-palm).
xXx DVD
Unbreakable DVD
Fight Club book
Some frames
A shirt w/ a collar
$50 Apple Store Gift Cirtificate
$50 in cash/checks
And THIS:



It doesn't work...

Saturday, February 08, 2003

I'M GOING TO COLLEGE!

I still don't know where :)

Today I got a semi-official acceptance e-mail from SJSU!

Basically they said "Welcome to SJSU" and you'll get the hard copy in the mail in a few months :).

Still, W00T!

Oh, and Giles ain't dead, too :). Life is goooood :).

Sunday, February 02, 2003

Iraq

...

Odds are that I'm going to be celebrating my birthday while a hundreds of people are dying in Iraq.

As I've said with a light heart:

"We've got a psycho with his finger on the button.

And then there's Sadaam..."

Bush wants war. War is a big thing for a nation. War puts a President's name in the books, for good reasons (usually).

I approve of a war vs Iraq IF AND ONLY IF Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia are all in favor of it too.

I don't want a war that no one but the president wants. We've had a few of those in our nations history...

All that aside, I will never go to war. There are a few reasons for this:

1: I'm against bullets flying in my general direction (I'm a coward, so sue me).

2: I'm going to be a student for the next four years, most likely.

3: I have a small heart defect (non-limiting), which might get infected if I get shot...

4: The US doesn't need a large ground force.

5: I don't like war.

#5 is most important, of course. I will bit my tounge and approve of a lot of things, even war, but just because I can approve of it doesn't mean I will go into it.

To be blunt, I'd rather go to Canada than go to war.
Columbia

When I heard about the Columbia crash, I was a bit shocked.

I was like "Wow..."

Then I got over it. I'm deeply saddened by the loss of seven brilliant people, by the loss of a amazing piece of machinery and technology (hey, the shuttles are VERY cool). I'm not so amazingly shocked that I cried over it.

Either 9/11 desensitized me to these little tragedies (extremely possible), or the massive media scramble has tuned me out of it.

I look at the news section of My Yahoo, and I see the top two articles are about Columbia.

Makes sense. They are about different things. (Remains and the Heat Spike)

Turn on CNN, and I'd bet you'd see continuing coverage...

I know why the media does this. The media probably doesn't care a lot about the seven people who died. Yes its horrible, but there are millions of people who die who don't get this kind of coverage. The media is concerned with the shuttle itself. A shuttle blew up for the first time in about 17-18 years.

I suppose another reason I'm not tearing up is because its not a spectacular explosion. It more came apart.

Its bad, but its not horrible.