Movies: Review: Constantine

Being a big fan of movies about the occult (angels/demons, vampires etc) I am a little biased on this one. I liked it - it has a few flaws, but I feel the visual style and effects make up for them. Plus, Keanu is a perfect fit for the title character. It's just like others have said: Constantine is a cross between The Matrix and The Exorcist. So if you liked both of those movies, you'll probably enjoy this one.

Most if not all of the flaws I found were with the plot and dialogue. Some lines were pretty cheesy (I can't think of specifics, but I remember saying to myself, "oh come on...") And then there were some holes in the plot. For example, Constantine gets attacked by a full-fledged (as opposed to "half-breed") demon right out in the open. Constantine tells this to one of his contacts but they remind him that full-fledged demons can't cross over into "our plane". So either it wasn't really a full demon, or it somehow got across. They never explain which.

Overall I enjoyed Constantine - it takes a fresh look at some often-repeated themes. For example, the ways that demons are exorcised, the way he can (literally) go to hell, and a female archangel Gabriel.

Bottom line: if you liked the Matrix and Exorcist, go see it if there's nothing else you're dying to see. You don't have to turn off your brain completely, but it might help to dial it back a bit.

TV: 24: 2/14/2005 and 2/21/2005

Ok, it's been a while since I posted last, because we had to tape the last episode and we watched them both last night. So here's the last two hours in summary:

After fleeing the hospital, the terrorist's kid and his mother get a room at a hotel. The kid goes to another hospital where the mother's brother works, to try and get some pain killers out of him. Wouldn't you know it, the uncle calls the father to let him know the kid's there, and he's acting "strangely". Daddy's on his way!

Meanwhile, Jack and Tony try to gather info from the freshly-dead suspect that worked for the defense contractor. All they manage to get from him are the last 10 calls from his cell phone. Guess who he made repeated calls to? I'll give you three guesses, and it's not the Pope. By calling the number and performing some techno-wizardry incantations, CTU triangulates the exact position of the hotel room where the kid and his mom are hiding out, and sends the coordinates to Jack's magical PDA. I gotta get me one of those.

So Jack and the boys storm the room, finding only the mother (the kid is still waiting at the hospital for his dad to show up and shoot him). The mom makes a deal for her son's amnesty (man it must be good to know Jack Bauer - he can get anyone a presidential pardon!) If they pick him up and protect him, she'll help them find the override device.

Oh, and to top all this off, one of the reactors has melted down, and the techie guy's elderly mother is in the fallout zone, stuck in a wheelchair with no help available. To make a long story short, he tries to pull some strings, but saving thousands of others is more important, so she kills herself. *tear* Actually, one of the most realistic things in the show so far was the reactor workers' faces melting off. Ewww.... Ok, back to hunting terrorists.

Now wouldn't you know it, just minutes before Jack and the team arrive at the hospital to pick up the kid, the father shows up and takes him hostage in the basement. He knows if he kills the kid, the wife will tell CTU everything, so it's a standoff. He needs to hold on to the kid until the remaining reactors blow, which can be a couple of hours. Meanwhile, Jack is on his way, Mission Impossible-style, down a laundry chute into the room on an acrobatic harness that CTU has managed to acquire in a matter of minutes (I'm sure they're standard issue). Of course, they know the way because they simply had to bring up the 3D model of the hospital which was availaible in their Magic Database of Everything. (In future posts I'll simply refer to this as the MDoE) Jack gracefully and silently touches down in the room, but the unnecessary recoiling of the harness causes it to bump up against the chute. A fight ensues, of course Jack wins, and the moment we think he's got the terrorist in custody the kid grabs the father's gun and shoots him dead. Thanks kid - you just killed hundreds of thousands of people!

Now that the kid is safe, the mother tells Jack the address of a building where they went for their final orders. There, they find a room filled with notes, maps etc - typical war room stuff. The interesting part however is the owner of the building. Through some simple queries on the MDoE, It's owned by a number of business who own each other, but the trail ultimately leads to a business in which Audrey's husband is the CFO! *dramatic music* Jack asks Audrey to find out where he is, so she calls him and finds out that he's leaving soon. She calls Jack and tells him where he is, but that she's going there herself to stall him. I guess she didn't learn from the first time she was taken hostage. But in the end, Jack saves the day and arrests him.

The mole says she and the defense contractor guy had a computer file listing names etc connected to the plan that only the two of them could access. She takes CTU agents to the building, where they're ambushed by previously-unseen, American, bad guys. The CTU guy is knocked unconscious and taken away (to be tortured or held for ransom I suppose). The mole gets popped before she can open the file.

Who are these new bad guys? What will Jack find out from Audrey's husband? More next week...

Law: Better off stealing

A great blog entry detailing the difference in penalties for downloading a season of a show from something like BitTorrent versus stealing the DVD from the store. We should all be uninstalling file sharing software and buying more baggy clothes.

TV: 24: 2/7/2005

The writers seem to be repeating the same themes this year: the flawed hero (last season: Jack addicted to smack, this season: Tony's a drunk), the mole (every season), the kidnapping (every season), you get the idea...

So in this episode, the son of the terrorists brings his mom to a hospital, where they tell the doctor "I walked into a nail". Yeah, ok - they're gonna buy that. Naturally, the cops show up (luckily not the father) and they're forced to bolt.

Tony takes Jack and the Secretary's daughter back to his house where they meet Tony's bitchy stoner girlfriend, with whom he's obviously punishing himself. We find out that Tony's wife from last season left him (big loss for him - she was hot) because he was a drunk after Jack and Prez Palmer got him out of jail. They use Tony's computer to decode the video data and send it to an acquaintance of Jack's. The contact tells them the guy in the video is some dude who worked for the defense contractor who made the magical override gizmo for the reactors. Long story short, they catch up with the guy and a sniper takes him out before they get any info out of him. Shocker.

I knew it was all being tied up too neatly - they found the guy from the tape, they finally discovered the real mole and everything seemed hunky-dory. Then, the guy from the tape gets ganked and the mole's car blows up. Cool stuff.

TV: Superbowl

Zzzzzzz.... Oh, I'm sorry - was I snoring again?

Man, was it just me or was this year's Superbowl a real snoozer? Not only did the matchup of two defensive teams make for an actionless game, but the producers obviously wanted to be so politically correct that no one on the planet would be offended between the "4-hour erection" ads.

Let's start with the opening ceremonies: Wow, you can't get more P.C. than Will Smith (famous for rapping without curse words) introducing "America the Beautiful" sung by Alicia Keys in a buttoned-up suit with backup from deaf and blind kids, in a salute to Ray Charles. My god, what's this world coming to? Then, more "children are our future" crap, with the kid "tossing" the coin, if you want to call it that - the thing didn't even flip in the air.

First half of the game: well, uhhh... ok, 'nuff said.

Now let's move on to halftime: Again, no risk of runaway boobs here - who wouldn't love everyone's favorite Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney? Uh, me, my wife, and most of the rest of the 18-34 male audience? Granted, his performance of "Live and Let Die" was pretty cool, but then he led the audience into the second half of the biggest game of the year with the grand finale: the oh-so-energizing "Hey Jude". Gee, nothing gets you pumped up for some good-ol' helmet-smashing football like a slow, sad song from a crusty old Englishman.

Second half of the game: finally, something interesting. Most (if not all, can't quite remember) of the scoring happened, with a few great catches and several turnovers. Not bad, but I've seen better games (Jets/Steelers comes to mind).

And that's pretty much it. But wait, what about the commercials? That's usually the best part of the Superbowl, but not many fantastic spots here either. My favorites: the pilot jumping out of the plane after the Bud Light, the guy looking like he butchered his girlfriend's cat and the chimps with the whoopee cushion.

I'd love to hear everyone's opinions on the game (and your favorite commercials of course!)

Music: Finally! A DRM-less legal music store

The Linspire chairman and founder of MP3.com is starting a new music store that will be free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) like iTunes or Windows Media. He's building it on the simple premise that people are generally good, and will not exploit the fact that music purchased on the site (mp3tunes.com) will have no restrictions. Read the article here.

If you're a digital music fan, please show the music industry that this consumer-friendly paradigm will work: Take your money away from DRM stores and bring it to mp3tunes.com.

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This post is coming from my cellphone. I'm such a geek..

TV: The Amazing Race: How'd they do that?

An interesting article on MSNBC that details just how they manage to set up the scenarios for round-the-world travel.

TV: American Idol: 2/1/2005

Ok, I just had to put up a post on this: what was the deal with the friggin mime? I mean come on, if the producers were trying to keep up the illusion that they don't put certain people through for entertainment value, this totally blew it. I could tell the judges were pissed by such a blatant waste of their time, but they were at the mercy of the producers. If they all weren't millionaires I'd feel sorry for them for being forced to listen to (or watch) these idiots "perform" for the sake of ratings.

TV: 24: 1/31/2005

On last night's episode, CTU tried to regain control of the reactors with some more of the show's familiar techno-jargon ("I might be able to modify the kernels if I don't touch the pre-compiled headers"). Ok - can you "send that to my screen" while you're at it? And maybe "open up a socket"? Annoying as it is, though, this kind of stuff is what makes the show so endearing to us techies.

Also, Jack and the new girlfriend (daughter of Sec. of State) escaped from the building where the security tapes were stored after being ambushed, thus revealing the presence of a mole in CTU. Jack called on the only person he could trust to save them: Tony Alameda from previous seasons. We knew someone from the past was coming, but I was a little disappointed to find out it wasn't Kim :) I've heard from articles on the web that ex-pres Palmer will be showing up in later episodes.

The son of the evil terrorist people managed to kill his would-be killer in the last episode, and now he calls his mother to save him. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this kid is a complete idiot - his mother killed his girlfriend for cryin' out loud! Did he really think she would help him? Even if she would (which is what she ended up trying to do), did he think they could hide from his father? I would have hopped on the first bus to anywhere and never looked back. I think the writers needed a new character that was as prone to misfortune as Kim Bauer, but they figured she'd been kidnapped enough times.