They used to get my sweat and tears, now just blood

Today I tried something new: donating platelets at the American Red Cross blood donor center here in Columbia. I received a call about two weeks ago asking if I'd be interested in donating platelets. Why not? With no objection springing to mind, my appointment was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday, August 14 (today, at least as I write).

My sister said that they provide the donor with a DVD player and movies to make the time pass. So I brought Sunset Boulevard, a Netflix movie that's been waiting to be watched for quite a while. When I arrived, I forgot to bring the DVD in with me. If only it'd fit in my pocket!

Friends from church were volunteering that day, so checking in was extra pleasant. The medical assessment was almost entirely the same as the whole blood assessment. I did have to sign a special form for permission to use my platelets. The technician explained the process and said it would take about 90 minutes the first time. He sent me off to the bathroom before we started. I used the opportunity to call my wife and let her know I'd be late.

I came back to pick a DVD from their collection. I almost took Rooster Cogburn (I must have seen it but can't remember at all) but then saw Sunset Boulevard. Figuring I'd watch this copy and then finish it at home, I was set. I sat in the chair. He marked both arms and stuck them with needles. The blood came out of my right arm, into their machine for separating, and red blood cells with a saline solution were put back in my left arm. The time went by quickly (thanks to a fabulous movie). I never freaked out like I thought I might and I was able to keep my arms still. The donation experience was quite good.

Once free of the needles (yay two bandages!) I had the usual juice and cookies. The thank you gift was some Red Cross flip flops especially designed to leave ads in the sand! Check them out:

I may have to go to a park with a sand box to check these out in action.

Jacob's favorite part of the trip

Tonight at dinner, we asked Jacob what was his favorite part of our trip to see Uncle John and go to the CNMC and visit Leslie in Boston this past weekend. He concentrated on Uncle John's house: "I liked cutting fruit, playing piano, going downstairs to the basement." Uncle John has a basket of plastic fruit in his living room which Jacob would pretend to cut up and feed to all of us. John also has a piano which Jacob tried to play, with halfway decent results for a two-and-a-half year old with no training at all.

I take requests! (and tips)

 And the basement is home to the big movie screen. We watched the beginning of many fun movies with Jacob. It's not that he fell asleep while watching but his attention span needs to grow longer. During the trip, we watched the beginnings of Finding Nemo and The Lion King many times. Someday, we'll make it to the end of one or the other, I'm sure.

On a side note, visiting Leslie was lots of fun and I had a lot of new inspirations and encouragements at the Catholic New Media Celebration.

Another Prequel? Terminator: Restitution

You may look at the above picture and wonder, "Why would Skynet send a toddler back through time?" Well, this photo was part of an early concept for another film in the Terminator franchise. The idea was that Skynet would send a toddler back to the mid-1980's to assassinate John Connor at his daycare. The idea was shot down for several insurmountable complications: (1) The writers couldn't figure out a sensible way to get John Connor into daycare since his mom was on the run with him in Mexico when he was a toddler. (2) The studio couldn't figure out how to advertise the movie--was it a sequel or a prequel? It's a sequel to the first movie but would be a prequel to Terminator 2. Could they call it a "midquel?" The curse of time travel falls heavily here.

Now they've thought of a way to morph the idea to please the fans. Since a good deal of the blame for the terrible atrocity that is Terminator: Salvation has been pinned on director McG, a brilliant idea was brought forward. The producers could make it up to the fans of Terminator with this plot line: What if Skynet sent a toddler terminator to kill McG in daycare, thus wiping out the possibility of the great disappointment of the fourth movie? Revenge fantasy seems to be all the rage (see Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious So-And-Sos, or, better yet, don't). Also it would introduce some moral complexity: who do the fans root for? Normally they'd root against Skynet, but hey, it's a whole new situation here. Filming two alternate endings (one with Skynet winning, one with McG winning) could keep the ambiguity going and would make a great feature for the DVD release. Maybe they could gimmick up the theatrical release and have two different versions of the film showing. The fans could vote with their ticket stubs on which is the one they really want to see.

Maybe it could happen--there is no fate but what we make.

Upcoming Firefly Prequel

Exciting news! It looks like they are working on a prequel to Joss Whedon's extremely popular Firefly/Serenity franchise. The story will focus on the younger days of cult favorite character Jayne Cobb and will solve one of the most puzzling mysteries still unexplained about the character: where did he get that hat? Here are some still images with snippets of dialog from the shooting script:

"How do you like my white hat, partner?"

"What, you think my white hat makes me look like a sissy? You hurt my feeling..."


"What? It's sissy because it's white? Now, I'm gonna have to hurt you (and maybe get a different hat)."

The t-shirt may also explain Wash's dinosaur battle reenactment at the beginning of the Firefly pilot. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

Movie Review: A Cure for Hiccups?

This is clearly the best movie ever made, with the greatest star performance by a female ever. The guy in the movie really drags it down, though. Get some lessons! Study the script! Oh, wait...there wasn't any script. Bummer.

Movie Review: Taken

We all know the famous Klingon proverb quoted by Khan in Star Trek II: "Revenge is a dish best served...cold." I remember seeing that quote on a marquee for Kill Bill. I think it was for Volume 1 because it was quoted during the film. The Bride seemed to think she was dealing cold-hearted revenge on the people who messed up her wedding day. She didn't seem particularly cold as she went about killing a ridiculous amount of people in Vol. 1 or not killing them in Vol. 2. She was fueled by rage and anger and she let it show. And she was hot in Bruce Lee's yellow jumpsuit, no doubt. All the flash and style of Kill Bill seems to be the total opposite of what the Klingons meant.

On the other hand, Taken would make a Klingon proud. In it, Liam Neeson's somewhat estranged 17-year old daughter wants to go to Paris for the summer with a friend to drink in the culture. Neeson's character is an ex-military special ops type who is totally paranoid about her safety. In order to make the story interesting of course, he decides to let her go even though he doesn't think it's safe for two teenage girls to go to a foreign country. They get kidnapped. His daughter is on the phone with him when she is caught, so he gets his first clues and makes his speech about how he is going to get the kidnappers. The story then follows him as he finds more clues and kills whoever he gets the clues from. Some people he just kills because they are in the way or happen to be in the area. The more innocent bystanders only sustain flesh wounds.

Neeson's character and performance are anything but hot. He runs around in a suit most of the time and has a bad haircut throughout. He is definitely not the male counterpart of the Bride. Like her, he is motivated rage and anger at the loss of his daughter, but he isn't vindictive or stylish in offing the bad guys. He just kills 'em dead and moves on. Neeson does no substantial emoting (either negative against the bad guys or positive with his daughter) and is mostly deadpan. Maybe the performance was intentionally that way. It sort of fits the character but doesn't attract any acting accolades.

Also, he is completely indifferent to the fate of other girls who have been kidnapped (including his daughter's friend). He only helps people who can put him closer to his daughter. He becomes a very unlikeable hero. Sure he loves his daughter and will do anything to get her back. But he has absolutely no other redeeming qualities.

The filming style of the movies is also very toned down and bare bones. No flashy or slick editing of scenes. No exotic or imaginative locations. In spite of being set in Paris, no obligatory iconic scenery (Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, etc.) is shown or incorporated into the story. The action is pretty straightforward and enjoyable if unimaginative and cliched (he hits every one he shoots at while the bad guys can only hit the walls/car/other bad guys around him). So that leaves the viewer pretty cold too.

I do have to say in its defense, I prefer the bare bones grittiness of Taken as compared with the stylish emptiness of Kill Bill or Man on Fire. Neeson's character is an immoral man bent on one thing. There are no distracting visuals or editing or fancy dialogue or acting trying to cover up the near soullessness of the lead character. I appreciate the honesty, but can I honestly say I enjoy it?

What can I say? I would really like this movie, if only I was a Klingon.

Movie Review: Drag Me to Hell

It's Saturday night and a full moon is out, so what better thing is there to do than go see a scary movie. I went tonight to see Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell. If I had to sum it up in one word, "awesome!" comes to mind.

The basic plot is a loan officer at a bank refuses to give a third extension to an old gypsy woman for her mortgage, so the gypsy woman curses her to be tormented for three days and then be dragged to Hell (for more of the same ad eternam). Naturally, she wants to get out from the curse and the rest of the movie chronicles her torments and her attempts to get free.

Sam Raimi is quite adept at setting up and paying off the scares throughout the film. He can build up to a scary moment as shadows chase the protagonist across the hall or jump something unexpected and unnerving in an instant. His real brilliance is in mixing humor into the horror, so the audience is at once shouting in fear and laughing at the same time. He did a lot of that in the Evil Dead films, and shows no sign of faltering here. It's an amazing way to build and relieve tension at the same time. And it's a little easier to go home without constantly looking over your shoulder.

He also gives a great fight scene between the gypsy woman and the loan officer, better than any and every fight in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And he gets more terror out of one handkerchief than other directors can get out of buckets of blood and gore. Which is not to say there aren't lots of gooey, gross bits in Drag Me to Hell. Again, these are tempered with humor so that the viewer isn't just grossed out.

The movie is an intense and humorous thrill ride, like a great roller coaster. It's fun to watch with a Saturday night crowd that is laughing, hooting and screaming with you. I would recommend it, though not if you are too squeamish (like my wife, who didn't come with me).

Star Trek Review and Reflection

I saw the new Star Trek movie twice. The first time I was really impressed with the fun and fast pace. The second time I started to notice a couple of things about the movie, now that I wasn't constantly being wowed by J. J. Abrams' masterful direction. He can certainly keep a movie moving.

If you have to pick who was the main character in the movie, the obvious two to choose from are Kirk and Spock. The movie was written by nerdy fan boys, thus Spock is clearly the main character. Consider the evidence: (1) Even though the movie starts with the birth of Kirk (in a brilliantly orchestrated sequence) more time is devoted to Spock's back story. (2) Kirk is legendary for his womanizing, but who really sees the most romantic action in the movie? Spock wins this one hands down. (3) Who is the only character from the "original continuity"? Again, it's Spock (or Spock Prime according to the credits).

I listened to a podcast with the screenwriters (hear it here) which was both enlightening and frustrating. Enlightening was the discussion of what Nero was doing for the 25 years from killing Kirk's dad to going after Spock (Klingons showed up en masse and took him to a prison planet; later his crew frees him and thus Uhura hears about the Klingon fleet being wiped out); why use a Rimbaldi device from Alias (to curry favor with J. J. Abrams); and other fun tidbits. Frustrating was their discussion of why Nero didn't try to save Romulus from the supernova. They had some excuse about how he didn't want to meet his wife as a young woman and he had to wait around for Spock to show up and then it would be too late to save the planet. They seemed to think he only went back 25 years. Of course, the Romulans arrive 25 years earlier than Spock Prime did, but Spock Prime also traveled into the past. If Spock Prime was 125, it seems as though he arrived when his younger self was in his twenties or early thirties. If so, that would leave about 100 years before Romulus's destruction and plenty of time to use the Rimbaldi red matter to turn the supernova star into a black hole, per Spock Prime's original plan.

So I really liked the film, but the more I think about it, the less I enjoy it. Oh well, there are plenty of other blockbusters coming.

Movie review: Sunshine

SPOILER ALERT!! THIS REVIEW REVEALS A BIG, BAD PLOT TWIST THAT RUINS THE MOVIE IN MY OPINION

Danny Boyle's Sunshine is a movie where a group of astronauts and scientists are on their way to the sun to deliver a bomb that will restart the dying star. It is set in an ambiguous but seemingly near future. Seven years before this group was sent another ship, Icarus I, was sent and failed to restart the sun. They are determined to get the job done.

The movie starts out quite realistically. The science doesn't seem too far fetched once you swallow the premise. The acting is uniformly good. The film has a very interesting visual style. The roasting hot proximity to the sun is well depicted. As you might imagine, the mission does not go according to plan, so they wind up dealing with a variety of crises, including the discovery of the first ship orbiting the sun. They decide to dock with it so that they will have a second bomb in case the first one doesn't work. This decision isn't perhaps the most well thought out but it is not too outlandish.

The real problem happens after they dock with the Icarus and discover that they can't use that ship or its supplies. The alteration of plans has been a waste. Worse yet, a psychopathic survivor from the first mission manages to infiltrate the Icarus II and starts killing people off one by one. All of the sudden, we go from a serious psychological sci fi drama to a space slasher film, including the space monster chasing around the young female officer. This turn is especially egregious since the crew who investigate the Icarus I talk about how they shouldn't split up because the space alien will pick them off one by one. Poking fun at a cliche and then incorporating it into the story only highlights how low the storytelling has fallen.

I'm tempted to listen to the commentary track by Danny Boyle to see if he acknowledges in any way if and how much of an error this is, or he has some sort of excuse for the dumb ending. History doesn't show much promise: Ang Lee didn't apologize for his incredible "The Hulk" catastrophe and Bret Ratner didn't for the bad ending of "Red Dragon." Maybe ignorance really is bliss.

The Matrix turns 10 years old!

Today is the tenth anniversary of the theatrical release of The Matrix. The movie is pretty amazing for a number of reasons.

1. The revolutionary visual style: Sure, we'd seen bullet time, liquid metal effects, cyberpunk dystopias, sci-fi noir, sci-fi messiah movies, Keanu Reeves, and wire-fu. But never in such an elaborate and well thought out combination. The result is a mind-blowing and mind-bending experience on the first viewing. I remember seeing it opening night and then going again that Sunday. It is the one and only time that I saw a movie twice on opening weekend. The movie is just amazing to watch.

2. Science fiction with substance: Science fiction is generally considered a second-rate genre. As if it is meant only for teen-age boys and adult males who are still that age. The Matrix provides a lot of philosophical questions to grapple with. What is the nature of reality? Are we just minds in a vat (a popular philosophical conundrum)? Is there Fate with the capital F? Does it really work? Could Keanu Reeves really be our messiah?

3. Action film credibility: Finally, after more and more ridiculous action films, someone came up with an excuse why a person can be a perfect shot all the time or fight of one or a dozen bad guys without being hurt. Being able to download combat skills or anything you need (like becoming an instant helicopter pilot) is a lot more realistic than someone who can just do everything.

I could go on and on about other things like cultural impact, etc. but you get the idea why this is probably the greatest film of the 1990s (except for maybe Shawshank).

Yesterday was a Great Day (sequel to Today was a Great Day)

After leaving Leslie on her way to the airport, we headed off to Ikea to begin planning for Jacob moving into his own room after baby #2 comes and is ready to be in the nursery. During the drive out of DC, Jacob dozed off in his car seat. At Ikea, he stayed asleep with occasional attempts to wake up.

We wandered through the children's section of Ikea looking for some specific things and hoping to run across some things randomly that would be useful to have. The specific items we were looking for were a dresser and a bookshelf for his room. We picked out a shorter dresser that he could use and found a bookcase of which we might buy two since he has plenty of books and toys. It's also a good height for him. We also ran across some plates for him to use (so we don't have to keep washing the Mickey Mouse plate after almost every meal) and a sandbox toy kit for the next time we visit the park across Vollmerhausen. These last two items we actually bought after finding our way through the labyrinthine pathways of Ikea.

The other thing we were shopping for was something to serve on Sunday when BJ and Amy would be here to watch Let the Right One In, a Swedish vampire flick that came out last year but we missed in the theater. Since they're coming for brunch the famous Ikea meatballs seemed like a bad idea. All the cinnamon rolls were sold out! Nothing else caught our fancy, so we'd planned to make baked oatmeal again (we always measure out a second set of dry ingredients and put it in a ziplock bag for the next weekend). We headed back to the car with our two items and our info on the furniture we will buy in the future when the income tax rebate comes.

We then returned to Silver Spring for dinner before going to the Neocatechumenal Saturday night Mass at St. Michael's Church. We ran into two of our fellow neocatechumenals walking towards the restaurants and had a nice chat before heading to Baja Fresh for filling burritos. We enjoyed it especially as a trip down memory lane. We used to eat out in Silver Spring a lot, because we'd meet there as I metroed home from work and Angie drove from down from her work. We ate at most of the restaurants in St. Michael's vicinity. It was fun in a new way to have Jacob along.

After dinner, we killed some time by wandering through Whole Foods supermarket. We looked for more brunch inspiration there, but the only things we found were Blood Orange Tea, creepy-looking whole fish and Irish soda bread. We still didn't make any purchases. The other odd thing we saw was vegan cane sugar. We'd never heard of such a thing, but check out the hyperlink for more info. I guess we could have used that if we'd been watching that other adolescent vampire film from last year. Vegan vampires, indeed!

The Mass was really great. Msgr. Tolentino always gives good homilies and it was good to reconnect with the community after about a month of being away. And we got to go to Chick-fil-A for a milkshake afterwards! A great end to a great day.