A good time was had by all this past weekend… or at least I did. There
is nothing better than a three-day weekend. Better still is a three-day
weekend when your significant other has to get up early to go to work
(or school) so you get the entire bed to yourself and you can sleep
diagonal.
Diagonal makes me happy.
Lots of movies were had over the course of the three days.
My Big Fat Greek
Wedding
was picked up at Costco and enjoyed just as
much the second time around. I am looking forward to see what they do
with the spin-off show, My Big Fat Greek Life. I hope they can
maintain the writing and quirkiness of the whole thing, but somehow I
doubt it. There’s something in the genuineness (yes, that’s a
word) that gets
lost when a movie gets translated to the small screen. The only
exception to that I can think of off hand is
Buffy.
Let’s hope these guys can pull it off.
Simone
was decent, too, but really hit home with me on another level. The whole
story is that this down-and-out director gets ahold of some computer
software that allows him to insert a computer-generated perfect
actress into his movies. The story goes about how he dupes the public
and they all love her, how he keeps up the appearance that she’s real,
etc. All in all, a good show.
The thing about that one is that my friend Gerb and I had been having a
similar discussion about this a while back. He’s trying to get into the
film industry and he brought up the idea that we will eventually get to
this point where people can invent computer-generated actors and you
would stop seeing actual people in movies. His point was that people
would always know the difference between a real person on screen and a
computerized person and the public would demand real people. I made the
counterpoint that you would eventually not even be able to tell just by
looking, you’d have to watch the actor’s actions to determine his/her
nature… but until artificial intelligence is sufficiently developed
enough to emulate human behavior (and that’s going to be a long time),
it’s moot - there will always be a real human behind the scenes
controlling the computerized actor anyway. Wouldn’t that be the same
thing? It’d just be like wearing a more complex level of makeup, to a
point where you’re actually emoting through an entirely different body.
Taking that one step further, that would actually open up the acting
field to people who, in real life, don’t meet the “standards” for what
an actor/actress should look like but who can actually act very well.
That might even provide a broader selection of talent to choose from.
Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
After seeing Simone, I’ll have to pick up that debate with him.
We also rented Formula
51, which
was a decent if shallow action/gangster film. It was fun, but definitely
a rental. I enjoyed Samuel L. Jackson, though I could have done without
his bare ass at the end.
So. Valentine’s Day (Friday) Jenn and I went to get Chinese food at a
local restaurant. After standing in the lobby for 30 minutes, crammed in
like a Crayola
48-pack,
we got our to-go order and returned home.
Chinese food rocks. I love the deep fried prawns. Lots of deep, extra
fried, with a smathering of prawn. It doesn’t get much better than
that.
While eating our Chinese, we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding as
described above. We also gave each other our gifts. I got her Orchestra
level seats for Mamma Mia! when it comes
to Portland in July, and she got me a PS2 game that I’ve been longing
for, The Getaway (more on that later).
That was Valentine’s Day.
Saturday and Sunday not much happened. I stopped in at my comic store
to pick up the latest issues of the crap I subscribe to and we cleaned
up the apartment a bit. Oh, and I played a lot of The Getaway.
Monday (President’s Day) I had the day off while Jenn had to go to
school, so I was alone for the first half of the day or thereabouts.
During that time, I got to stretch out and sleep in my beloved diagonal
position. One would think such things would provide little joy, but when
you hang over the edge of the bed regardless of what you do, diagonal is
a Good Thing.
Monday afternoon my dad, Jenn, and I all went to see
Daredevil. I liked it, but I feel
that I’m probably biased because there were a lot of comic book in-jokes
that only the people who read the comics will get. My dad and Jenn,
neither of whom read the books, also liked it though, so take that for
what it’s worth. If you liked
Spider-Man
or
Batman,
you’ll probably like Daredevil. It’s got the action and coolness of
Spider-Man with the darkness in Batman. Plus, Jennifer
Garner.
Anyway, The Getaway. This game rules. It’s an accurate scale
re-creation of 40 square kilometers of London. Within this world, you
play a gangster named Mark Hammond who’s child has been kidnapped by a
gangster named Charlie Jolson. Your object is to run missions for Jolson
while trying to find where he’s got your kid.
The game plays like a British gangster movie, a la Lock, Stock and
Two Smoking
Barrels.
They’ve taken it to the next stage, though, and the whole game is in
widescreen, and there are no “gaming indicators” on screen - if you want
to know your health level, you look at how badly your character is
limping; if you want to know which direction to turn while driving,
watch the car’s turn signals. That rocks because you’re never sucked out
of the idea that the thing is a movie. The controls are simple and
intuitive, too - there’s an “action” button that allows you to crouch,
hide, roll, etc., all based on the context the character is in; there’s
an “attack” button that shoots your gun, pistol whips people, etc. It’s
all very simple, allowing you to do more complex things without having
to remember loads of button combos. And it’s not so difficult that you
can’t beat a mission. You may have to try several times, but it’s not
impossible the way some games are. I’m loving it. If you have a PS2,
check this thing out.
(An interesting item of note - Formula 51 takes place in London, and
as I was watching, certain places looked familiar, probably due to my
exposure via The Getaway. Or maybe all of Britain looks the same…)
