Deve’s Blog

Finally I can get some rest from work, as the part of the project that completely drained us for the last 3 months is over, so I managed to disconnect the brain for a bit: first on Thursday night, dining with colleagues from Accenture Orientation to celebrate (why?!) 18 months of work (and the switch to open-ended job contract), and then on Friday night, going to the movies. Chosen flick: the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, that looked interesting to me since I saw the first trailers, as it reminded me of the beautiful “La Neve se ne Frega” novel by Ligabue.
And you can really tell we’ve got some respite from work ’cause I can even find the time and the will to write a short review…

The movie tells about Benjamin’s Button life, from his birth to his death; a very particular life, though, as Benjamin Button was born… old. His mother died while giving birth to him, his father abandoned him in front of a hospice for the elderly, where he gets taken care of by his foster mother Queenie, despite his difference. Benjamin, indeed, had the size and the mind of a newborn, but the body of an old man, almost blind, arthritic and apparently near death.

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18 years since The Last Crusade, rejected and rewritten scripts, perpetual delays, but he finally made it: the most famous archaeologist in the history of cinema is back among us… he’s got a few more years on his shoulders, but has he lost his touch? Will he still be able to excite us? Or will it be just another revival to cash in?

1957, a military convoy heads towards a base in the middle of the Nevada desert. It’s not American soldiers, though, but undercover Russians on American ground, who quickly suppress al resistance and take control of the base. From the trunk of a car, two men are pulled out. We can only see their shadows, and when one of them puts on a hat with an unmistakable silhouette, we know Indy is back…

And in contrast with most people’s expectations, our archaeologist looks in good shape! For those who where afraid this fourth episode could have been a “Indiana Jones and the Hospice of Doom”, good news: Harrison Ford, although visibly older, kept quite fit, plays several action sequences and doesn’t back out from jumps, chases, punches and incredible flights. Yes, he has lost some of the untoppable charisma of his golden years, but in spirit he seems the same Indy as always.

Still…

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“Iron Man?’ That’s kinda catchy. Well technically, it’s a gold-titanium alloy, but…”

It’s time for another comic book hero to land on the big screen: Iron Man. As usual, I knew absolutely nothing about the character and/or the comic book, so I’m relieved from the need to make comparisons (which by the way are an end in themselves most of the times) with the “original”. But even ignoring any kind of background, since I first saw the trailer (I suggest the HD version where available) I decided I absolutely had to see it, obviously at the Arcadia (for those of you who don’t know it, it’s a cinema in the outskirts of Milan, characterized by the Sala Energia ["Energy Theater"], which has a 30-metres wide screen and a THX system certified by George Lucas himself :sbav:)

Well, the high expectations have been fully met…

Plot: quite linear. Tony Stark, a multi-millionaire playboy who leads the most important US arms industry, gets captured in Afghanistan bu guerrilla fighters, and is forced to build weapons of mass destruction for them. Seriously injured by a grenade, Tony, rather than building missiles, begins designing a special armor that allows him to escape. Back in the US, shocked by the experience he lived, he decides to halt his weapons manufacturing facilities and to focus on building a new version of the armor that saved him, so he can step in the front line and stop whoever threatens peace…

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After I had to skip my plans of cinema-overdose on the first days of January, because of chicken pox, only last saturday, at the end of January, I finally managed to go and see a movie.
Well, I decided to go for this “I Am Legend”; the plot seemed quite banal and overused (lethal virus leaving almost no survivors, and those who survive becomes a zombie-vampire-like-thing), but I also found out that the book on which the movie is based dates back to the ’50s and was the forerunner of these apocalyptic settings. Also, I was very curious about the scenes showing a deserted New York, and good ol’ Will is always a guarantee. And it’s also true that from a not original plot you can pull off something with its own strengths and peculiarities (to stay on the subject, the very good “28 days later” comes to mind).

The New York scenes are the first things to strike the audience. I’d really like to get some info on how they were shot, ’cause yes, I had heard of citizens protesting because many roads were blocked for the shots, but here we’re not talking of a “ok, let’s close off these roads, shoot quickly and then open up again”: the streets were filled of vegetation, abandoned cars, props to really give the impression of a New York left to itself, and it’s inevitable that this required several days of shooting. About this, Will Smith says:
“Shooting in New York, especially something on this level, is difficult. I would say that percentage-wise, it’s the most amounts of middle fingers I’ve ever received in my career. I was like, ‘I’m used to people liking me. When I come to town it’s fun’, so I thought ‘Middle fingers?’. I was starting to think ‘f-you’ was my name.”

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I found this awesome 24 parody, and I just had to link it… What would have happened in 24, the famous TV series, had it been set in 1994? How would have Jack Bauer managed to keep going without PDAs and satellites?

“Something’s wrong, Nina, it’s been too long… … … … … PAGE HIM!”

It’s a really well produced video that hits the target, and having used the technology of that period it really cracks me up… But it also makes you think, it’s incredible how much we’ve progressed in ten years or so: how could I forget those dot-matrix printers, and the damned paper-with-holes-to-the-side-and-carbon-paper-inside? And the joyful sound of the 56k (or 33.6!) modem, that we had learnt by heart! I still remember I was almost touched when they finally activated my Fastweb DSL line… eh, good times… :asd.

Oh how nice, in this long weekend (thanking Saint Ambrose, patron Saint of Milan) I managed to go to the cinema! And not once, but thrice!
So here come some quick mini-reviews…

On Friday I was dragged to see The Nanny Diaries. It wasn’t that bad actually. Overall decent, a bit boring in some parts but somewhat entertaining here and there; nice ending, not too sweet. Scarlett Johansson is, as always, fantastic, not only ’cause she is totally hot, but because she showed she is good at acting even in a role where there’s no use to be made of sex appeal. The various shots around New York, and Central Park in particular, were quite good too… having been there, and quite recently too, it’s always a pleasure to see it (but oh the nostalgia…).
Vote: 6 1/2

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After years of gags and puns and paradoxical situations and catch phrases, the Simpsons land on the big screen. Hesitating is legitimate: after about a dozen of awesome seasons, rich of scenes-to-remember (”You must find the Jade Monkey…” “Yes yes, I’ll type that on my invisible typewriter…” “Thanks, giant beer!” and millions more), it’s undeniable the following seasons had some highs and lows, before getting to some really unwatchable episodes (the one with the Simpsons family protagonist of a reality show comes to mind ).

So, what side is this movie on? Are we back to brilliant jokes, or is this 90 minutes of grotesque and stale gags?
(continues under SpiderPig)

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It seems absurd, but even during these two and something months during which I had nothing to do I managed not to find the time for a lot of things… like upgrading the blog… putting together the California videos (a trip which is TWO years old [ok, they actually finally gave me the video less then a year ago])… reorder the numerous Kos photos (but in the meantime I put several on Flickr, geotagging the photos of old holidays)… etc. etc.
After all it may not seem so, but in June I had, if not a job interview every day, close to it; and not always in close spots, and sometimes quite lengthy ones… then I had driving school, I went to Rome, had to go out shopping for some pre-holiday purchases… well, anyway it’s probably been a month since I saw The Prestige, I liked it A LOT and I still haven’t written a review…

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Awesome! After hours and hours and hours spent, when I was a kid, between the TV cartoons and, most importantly, the big robot toys (of which I had a non-indifferent collection [which is probably still somewhere in the basement and which is probably worth a little something by now]), I found out that the Magician of Ignorance Michael Bay, with uncle Spielberg as a producer, directed a movie about Autobots and Decepticons… which in Italian had been translated as Autorobot and Distructors, but I guess after more than 20 years the translation and adaptation policies have changed a bit. So no more “Commander” but Optimus Prime, no more “Maggiolino” but Bumblebee etc. etc. But Megatron is still Megatron

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With the last episode of House’s third season, aired last week in the US, I think the TV season is essentially over… from here to autumn I think what’s left is Naruto (which, thanks to the power of the Japs, airs almost every week) and in ten days or so “The 4400“, which is a summer series. In the meantime, I managed to get a hold of Heroes (from which the post title :ahsisi:), watching all the 23 episodes over a few days: not the crazy rythm I had with Prison Break last year (22 episodes in three days, with 10 in one day…), but definitely a sustained rythm. So let’s see, what happened in the various series this season?

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