the passenger seat


split screen sadness, part i
July 19, 2009, 12:21 am
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Loving Norah Jones a lot right now. Her voice is so, so nice. It’s so relaxing.
Film
I’ve watched a few movies recently. The first, two nights ago, was Angels & Demons, based on the Dan Brown novel of the same name. When I say “based on”, I mean this very, very loosely. As a fan of the novel, I didn’t like the movie. The plot strayed so much from the novel’s story, and so many key elements were taken away and changed, which annoyed me. If you haven’t watched to film and plan on seeing it, I advise that you skip the next paragraph, because there will be spoilers.
There were many things that I was disappointed with in the film. The first was that the scientist that is killed at the beginning was not Vittoria Vetra’s father, but rather her “research partner”. Secondly, the movie showed Vittoria actually in the lab at the time of the murder, but in the book she was away, on an ocean research trip. This took way from the film because it took away some of the funny moments, including the parts where Vittoria enters Vatican City in shorts, where women are not allowed to show skin above their knees. Also, Maximilian Kohler was removed completely from the film. His character is actually one of the main characters- his wheelchair-ridden figure and cynical tone added a lot to the novel, and he plays a key part in the unravelling of the plot. Instead, his character was now the police chief. Furthermore, in the key scene where the Camerlengo brands himself, it was supposed to be shot from a video camera under Kohler’s wheelchair, but this was changed to a simple security camera with the chief of police holding the key to the videos. Two very, very important things that were changed: 1. The fourth cardinal, the one who dies by drowning, actually survives in the film, and even goes on to become Pope. In the novel, ALL the cardinals die, so I reall didn’t like this part of the film, although it was an interesting surprise. 2. The fifth brand, the “Illuminati Diamond”, was not the crazy ambigram that it was in the novel- it was simply two crossed keys. Hardly spectacular.
Anyway, I’ll stop my rant there. I apologise to anyone who read through that painfully, but I really didn’t like what the producers did to the story.
Another film is The Wrestler, which I watched last night. It was clear from the beginning that it was another arthouse movie, and it did play like one. Like most indie movies, the story moved slowly, but it was moving at times. It’s the story of an old wrestler (think WWE, but on a local level) that suffers a heart attack and is forced to retire, and then tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter. He also tries to form a proper relationship with a stripper he’s been a client of for some time, but to no avail. He goes through various jobs before he gets sick of it and decides to participate in a final wrestling match; a rematch of a really famous fight many years back. Anyway, he ends up struggling with his heart during the match, and we assume that he doesn’t survive after his final move which wins him the match. Overall, the film was kind of boring at first but it did get me watching towards the end, so that was good.
And the lastly, lately I’ve been watching a lot of Entourage. Now, I haven’t really been into many series before, mainly because I can never be bothered to follow it in its entirety, but I really enjoy watching Entourage. Great show; Ari Gold is awesome. For those of you who haven’t heard of or watched it, Entourage is a series about four friends who live together, and one of them, Vincent Chase, is a move star. So it’s basically all about him and his agent (Eric) getting movie deals and partying and the likes, but with a lot of lols thrown in. There are also side plots with the other guys- Johnny Drama (Vincent’s brother) and Turtle (a guy who does nothing a lot of the time except check out girls)- getting some action in the business, too. It’s an interesting take on media and the entertainment business. I’ve watched up to the end of season 3 so far, and I will definitely be finishing season 4 by the end of the holidays.
HP
Bruno
Design
Desktop
Hopefully I will blog next week with some very exciting news…. etc.

Loving Norah Jones a lot right now. Her voice is so, so nice. It’s so relaxing…

I’ve watched a few movies recently. The first, four nights ago, was Angels & Demons, based on the Dan Brown novel of the same name. When I say “based on”, I mean this very, very loosely. As a fan of the novel, I didn’t like the movie. The plot strayed so much from the novel’s story, and so many key elements were taken away and changed, which annoyed me. It looked awesome from the trailers, but the actual movie just didn’t cut it for me. If you haven’t watched to film and plan on seeing it, I advise that you skip the next paragraph, because there will be spoilers.

angels

SPOILERS BELOW

There were many things that I was disappointed with in the film. The first was that the scientist that is killed at the beginning was not Vittoria Vetra’s father, but rather it was her “research partner” in the film. Secondly, the movie showed Vittoria actually in the lab at the time of the murder, but in the book she was away, on an ocean research trip. This took away from the film because it took away some of the funny moments, including the parts where Vittoria enters Vatican City in short shorts, where women are not allowed to show skin above their knees. Also, Maximilian Kohler was removed completely from the film. His character is actually one of the main characters- his wheelchair-ridden figure and cynical tone added a lot to the novel, and he plays a key part in the unravelling of the plot. Instead, his character was now the police chief. Furthermore, in the key scene where the Camerlengo brands himself, it was supposed to be shot from a video camera under Kohler’s wheelchair, but this was changed to a simple security camera with the chief of police holding the key to the videos. Two very, very important things that were changed: 1. The fourth cardinal, the one who dies by drowning, actually survives in the film, and even goes on to become Pope. In the novel, ALL the cardinals die, so I really didn’t like this part of the film, although it was an interesting surprise. 2. The fifth brand, the “Illuminati Diamond”, was not the crazy ambigram that it was in the novel- it was simply two crossed keys. Hardly spectacular.

END SPOILERS

Anyway, I’ll stop my rant there. I apologise to anyone who read through that painfully, but I really didn’t like what the producers did to the story.

Another film is The Wrestler, which I watched last night. I don’t think anyone is planning on watching this one, so I won’t worry about spoilers. But, like before, skip the paragraph below if you think you might.

wrestler

From the get go, it had the look and feel of an arthouse movie, but apparently it isn’t and has won many, many awards. The story moved slowly, but it was moving at times. It’s the story of an old wrestler (think WWE, but on a local level) that suffers a heart attack and is forced to retire, and then tries to reconcile with his estranged adult daughter. He also tries to form a proper relationship with a stripper he’s been a client of for some time, but to no avail on both counts. He goes through various jobs before he gets sick of it and decides to return to wrestling and participate in a special rematch of a really famous fight many years back between him and some Arab guy. Anyway, he ends up struggling with his heart during the match, and it turns out to be his last; we assume that he doesn’t survive after his final move, which wins him the match. Overall, the film was kind of boring at first but it did get me watching towards the end, so that was good.

Holy crap, this blog is getting long. I think I’ll stop there and post the rest of it tomorrow.

Just as a side note, I have my second ever driving lesson with an instructor tomorrow morning. I had one on Wednesday afternoon, also. My instructor is like the cousin of a friend of ours, and he knows all the little tricks that you can lose points on over the course (I’m doing the test in Silverwater). So these two sessions are just to get my driving perfect and so I’ll have a really good chance of passing. Previously, my dad taught me everything, and that’s been pretty good except for those tricks that only instructors/examiners know. I’ll be doing the test on Tuesday, so wish me luck!

Anyway, that is all for now. Stay tuned for Part II of the movie blog tomorrow, where I’ll talk about Entourage, which is not a movie but a TV series, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I watched to day with my family. But ’til then, take care.

PS. WordPress word count lies. It says “Word Count: 1575” when in reality it’s like 800. And I know many of you will pick up the blog title. Split Screen Sadness, Part I, get it?

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