Monster House: everything I expected!

Its hard work to really enjoy a movie these days!
You have to see it at the movies...but at the same time, you can't watch the trailer, or learn too much about it, because you risk spoiling the movie. It's a cruel paradox

And then when the movie opens, you have to shut yourself off to movie reviewers - I'm not sure of the entire psychology, but if a movie is overhype, you get cynical, and if it is trashed, then you lose the ability to forgive early, and lose the ability to give a film the benefit of the doubt right up to the end.

Its such an effort, that it can be disappointing when the movie doesn't live up to expectations: eg Starwars Phantom menace was one such unrewarding ordeal of trailer celebacy. Recently, Lady in the water had me even more disappointed.

But this morning, one of those trailer celobacy efforts finally paid off: Monster House.

As soon as I saw the movie poster I knew this was a movie for me. It was like a movie poster for maniac mansion. The Ron Gilbert Video game which was a homage to many eighties movies of where a bunch of kids got together and confronted something scary. And I was doubly excited when I noticed that Spielberg and Zemeckis were involved. Some people write Spielberg off as just a talented director who had some lucky scripts fall on to his lap. And you can be forgiven for thinking that: how else do you rationalize his hot/cold run. But if you want to get to the core of a man: look to his writing credits. With Speilberg there are only a few of them: one of them is goonies, and one is poltergeist. Now you've got a better idea...

The movie poster was quite a work of art too. It left a thousand possibilities what the premise could be. I saw some other posters, and quickly regeretted seeing them as they revealed the plot of the movie - the house takes on human traits. Ie its windows are eyes. As well as being a lesser visual creation, this also spoiled the movie a bit. I hate that! The other movie poster, is just a black silhouette, with monster house in red. Everything except the title screams M or R rated movie, and would be totally lost on its young kid target audience, who want something colourful and interesting to look at.

Anyway, the movie was good. Wuold have been AWESOME if it was live action..but its no good to dwell on what might have been.

Dakota Fanning: the last child actor?

A couple of moths ago, whilst walking inside the cinema to see a movie - I noticed that every movie poster I walked by was a 3D aniamted film with about animals! There was:

Over the hedge
In the wild
Curious George.
Cars - sorta
Ice Age 2
Little red riding hood (or whatever)
Barnyard
Open season
..and rumours of Madagascar2

And there are some positives to this. Many animated features do put more time and effort into getting the script right, than do live action movies. But at the same time it means a dearth of movies starring real people.

A few weeks ago, I came across a poster for the movie entitled monster house. I thought it might be one of those classic eighties movies that I was raised on, especially after noticing that it was produced by stephen spielberg. But I was disappinted to learn that it is a pure CG affair, with 3D mannequin kids running around.

The teenage girls still get real humans, in Gym-nice-tics (or whatever) and Step Up - but if you're a preadolescent boy - you're out of luck! Movies that were previously made as live action movies, with real people, are now being made in 3D and it sucks!

There are no more child actors like they had in the eighties :)

There would be no jobs for the two coreys, or river phoenix, wil weaton, ethan hawke, sean astin or jerry oconnel. I once joked that Dakota Fanning would be the last child actor - and last night, amusingly, she appeared by her lonesome on the charlottes web poster, whilst the trailers of the aforementioned 3D movies played in the background.

I blame the wiggles..

Not for Steve Irwins death, but for making him so popular with the kids, causing unprecendented family grief across australia, and across the world.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1157450941131A236


I'm still grieving.

He was such a great guy.

I bought a bike.

I had planned to go into work today, but last night I received an email from a guy I won a bike from in an online auction. I won it by bidding $190, but it sounded like a good deal:

"Brand new full size 21 Speed, Shimano gear, Avanti Bike. Un-wanted gift. Excellent condition as never used.Frame size is 58cm( 23" )XL. including Bike Helmet ( new ) Bargin at this price as over $369.00 with offer. Purchasesd in Thames and has a two year warrenty. Will make a excellent present for christmas.".

He lived in Thames, but I figured I could drive down and take it home, just like I took home Jed's bike when it got delivered to work. I was relieved to hear from him since he didn't get back to me before christmas, and I had thought he had given it to someone else. . And convenient too, with today being a public holiday. So I arranged to come down and meet him, and started driving.

I was making great time until I came to a queue just five kilometres from his address. It was a queue to cross a one lane bridge into Thames. I thought about parking my car and walking. And I had lots of time to think. I was in that queue for one and a half hours. Many others were getting out and walking. You could tell something was wrong because after some ten minute breaks the cars would move hudreds of metres, and other times, they would move much less. Finally as the single lane bridge was in view, a flashing light vehicle came along, and let over a kilometre of cars through at one time, including mine. yay!

When I got to the other side there was barely a hundred metres of cars built up at the other side. I'm not sure what happened, either the traffic lights were down on the bridge - or the lights were changing too quickly to be efficient, and favored the other direction.

Anyway patience prevailed, and I followed the directions to the traders house, which he had conveyed to me via mobile whilst I was sitting stationary in the queue. It is an absolutely lovely area with steep green hills rising up everywhere. I made it to his place, and was relived to see a massive big kid standing in the garage. The bike was indeed brand new, as advertised, so I payed the money without test riding it. I just checked the frame and the cranks for hair line cracks.

Anyway, after sitting in that queue for so long, and going stir crazy from the stillness, numbness of leg muscles, and the threat of deep vein thrombosis, I was subconsciously spurred into action and jumped on the bike, and rode it up the nearest hill. What a great feeling! When I got to the top, I turned around, and saw that Thames is a big estuary for a river, and from my vantage point it lay stretched out infront of me, framed by two big green hills nearby.

I asked for different directions home - I wanted to avoid queues at all costs! So I took a 28 kilometre detour. Traffic did get slow on the way home - everyone coming home from their new year break - but was never stopped dead ever again.

When I got home, it was raining lightly, so instead of getting my brand new bike dirty, I grabbed my skipping rope and did about a thousand skips, some stretching, and some cross over skipping.

Magical time to be a kid at the movies.

That reads: Zathura, Chicken Little, Cheaper By the dozen 2, Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, Lion with and the wardrobe, King kong and Nanny McPhee.

All PG or lower, and all very good with the possible exception of Nanny McPhee, and chicken little, which I didn't see.

I hunted around through the eighties archives, and nothing came close to such a line up!!

Voting Day

Today was voting day. Yes, this means I'll have participated in the fedaral elections of two separate countries, one year after the other! Lat year for Australian, and this year for New Zealand. There isn't so much riding on this election. The newspapers reckon the economy is just about to plummet, and that the election is much like a poisoned chalice. Chances are that during the next term, the public will blame the ruling party for the bad stuff that will inevitably happen, and vote them out the term after. But nevertheless, I was curious so I drove on down to the local public school, and cast my vote.

Noticable differences:
* New Zealand have an Mixed Member Proportional(MMP) system, similar to Germany. IT means that a government cannot rule alone unless they get a majority of the votes. If they get less than 50%, they must search around for a coalition partner and construct some sort of agreement. This has pros and cons over other systems.

* Easier voting, you just choose one box from one list, and another box from another.

* No political ads are allowed on the weekend of the election.

* No pamplet assualtists at the voting booths. And no big mess of wasted paper. This is great!

* It's not compulsory. This must certainly be a concern after the last couple of US elections.

Wined and Dined

At 6:00, I awoke from an afternoon nap, and open the door of my room. My bedroom adjoins the kitchen and set out before me on the table are three of four dishes of delicious chinese food, all covered with a fly-swatter-mesh plastic dome. Now I have joined Claire and her husband Ywin for weekend dinner on many occasions - shes a great cook! - but I didn't usually receive food-leaving-out priviledge. When Claire appeared, turned on the lights, and asked me whether I was hungry, I knew there was a catch! I *was* planning on spending the night working on my 'own stuff', but Claire had this big assignment due and was having lots of problems with it. She had dragged me off to the computer labs a week earlier to work on her big assignment and we stayed there for eight hours. I felt a little sense duty to finish what I'd started, and I was pretty hungry, so I sat down and slowly began rising from my slumber state, as Claire dashed around heating everything up. The meal begins with some type of soup, then moves onto rice with pork boiled in its own seasoned fat in a big saucepan, and some very seasoned radish, and some omelette thing. I forget the vegetables. Eating yummy food when you're hungry and semi awake is nice :)

So 7:00 we head off to the uni labs. Its only a two minute drive. It's the reason Claire and Ywin moved into the location where they currently are, and the 'uni accomodation' tag of our suburb is the reason my rent is so cheap.

We enter the big electronically secured uni gates. This week, as was the case last week, absolutely no body is there, and we have this absolutely amazing facilty all to ourselves. the computer Science department of Auckland uni is quite reknowned, and posters from all sorts of robot control, and image recognition projects line the walls. The room claire likes to work out of has computer terminals all round the walls, but there are blue curtains, what I would regard as bedroom curtains, on all four walls. In the middle is a big new blue lounge with matching arm chairs. This is pointed towards a big TV which I'm *sure* they use for watching things other than educational. It looks just like somebody's bedroom! But its a really comfortable, non-depressing place to study!

We spend seven hours doing the work. Its a pretty good session, Claire is happy with what we built, and is eager to develop it further from home tomorrow. We drive home and off to bed.

I rise at ten, go to Pump, go to Work, and then come back home at about six. Dinner is once again made, and although I'm quite tired, I can tell that my evening is going to be put to good use. Sure enough, during dinner Claire reveals she has had some problems during the day, and I again agree to accompany her to the labs. Dinner tonight begins with two spring rolls, then moves on to rice with the same pork as last night, and some side dishes with red onions, egg and celery. I think yum! After I hang out my washing, we again hop in the car.

This time we only stay for about four hours, but we accomplish lots. Claire gets her test data recreated exactly. And I also give her a contingency technique to use if things turn bad - which they probably won't. Get home , and flop into bed, assessing the weekend. I have procrastinated away the weekend once again and my goal completion side is left completely unsatisfied - but my stomach isn't!

Up the snow

Went up the snow on the weekend. Or should I say down, to a mountain southwest of Rotorua called Mt Ruapeuh or something similar. Its not the Mt Fuji-like mountain that was in the last samurai, its a taller one that consists of a conical volcano framed by two smaller peaks either side of it.

I drove down on the Friday night, with Mark, Nadja, and Jed in the back. We didn't leave til about 10, and aimed to get there at 2:00. It was a pretty boring drive, everyone was zonked out from a week of work, and the stimulant I took didn't appear to do anything.

Jed and Naja were Staying with Brian, Jerry, and Amelia in 'rustic' cabins, whilst myself and Mark had a bachelor pad to ourselves. Funnily enough, most people call the weekenders in new zealand bach's (pronounced 'batch'). I believe this is short for bachelor pad, but I could be mistaken. After a wonderful nights sleep, I woke up threw some clothes on just in time to meet the others down at the Eutopia cafe for breakfast.

Everyone had decided to Ski on saturday, so Mark and myself hired some gear, and zoomed on up the mountain. It was a pretty nice day - and no chains were needed. Instead of paying for a full mountain pass, I got a lower mountain pass and a lesson. The lesson wasn't really needed, as I found my prepubescent skiing legs hadn't left me. But good to know the basics. By the end of the day I was zooming down the big long run, taking parallel turns, and skiing fast down the bits where I couldn't - all without falling over once! It was pretty good weather throughout - there was a bit of snow, but very little wind.

Jed had promised us we could use their spa in the evening, so Mark and myself showered in our bach, and headed over there. The 'spa' was a cheap plastic thing stuck in a shed in the quadrangle formed by the owners house, two cabins, and childrens play equipment. It reminded me of our backyard in Oakville :) To save electricity, the owners kept the water at a constant luke warm temperature. The water wasn't very clean either. By sunday morning, my big toe, already a little red from being shoved to the end of my ski boot, would be swollen and infected! Icky!

Lucky for us, the evening we had chosen was also the evening of the Bledisloe Cup between Asutralia and NZ. So we headed on down to the wonderfully modern matterhorn/powderkeg pub/restaurant place just down the road from the bach. It was naturally very, very busy, but Brian managed to get us prime seats at a big table, with a massive projection television at one end which was tuned in to the Rugby. Amazing work Brian! To my surprise Vlad and Tania arrived just after dinner. We had a pretty good time, the Kiwis won, and we were in bed before midnight.

The next day I woke up with my big toe all red and angry. We had decided to meet at Eutopia at 8:00am to catch the morning weather (which is usually the better). Tania, Vlad Mark and Myself were there , but Jed didn't show up until ten to nine! This was too long for the others who took off up the mountain whilst I hung around for the Jed and Brian. I had a nice grilled breakfast with Jed, but told him that unfortunately my feet wouldn't enjoy being in ski boots that day. Just after I returned my ski gear, I got a call from Vlad saying that the conditions were atrocious, and asking to be driven in four wheel drive comfort to the top. I took off up the mountain, gave Vlad my car, and took his back down.

The weather ended up being pretty bad. Vlad took one run down the mountain, Brian, Jerry and Amelia didn't ski at all. So I didn't feel bad for sleeping the day away. It left me perked up for the drive home. Myself Jed and Nadja had a great fun time in the car on the way back. I let Nadja drive most of the way, and we swapped when she got tired.

All in all a great, fun weekend!