Movies: Review: Batman Begins

Some people call the latest installment to the Batman franchise a prequel to the Michael Keaton original. I see it as the beginning of a newer, fresher, darker, less comic-bookish take on the caped crusader. For one thing the sets, villains and technology (gadgets/weapons/vehicles/armor) are much more realistic (well, more realistic-sounding) than those in the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films, giving you the feeling that this might be remotely possible today. The other thing that separates it from the previous films are differences in the story. For instance, in Begins, the Joker does not kill Bruce Wayne's parents, staying true to the old graphic novels.

I always enjoy it when you can tell the writers of a screenplay actually put some effort into it. Begins is definitely one of those screenplays. Its main villain is convinced he is working for an important and noble cause. Antagonists like these are always more believable than villains who are simply evil for the sake of being evil.

The action and special effects are excellent, as is to be expected of any modern blockbuster, but the fight scenes can be a bit of a blur at times. When I first saw the new Batmobile in a still photo, I thought it was the fugliest thing I'd ever seen. But it grows on you - it's much different when you see it in action (like when driving straight through highway dividers like they were grandma's hedges).

Overall, Begins doesn't disappoint - it's definitely a better film than previous ones in the franchise. The screenplay and acting were a welcome relief after Schumacher's flops. Bale makes an excellent Batman with just the right amount of stiffness and swagger to balance Bruce Wayne and his dark alterego.

Bottom line: This is a must-see for anyone who liked the original Tim Burton films, and is worth shelling out 10 bucks to see it in theaters. Parents, heed the PG-13 rating though - there are some images that will give little ones nightmares.

Entertainment: TomKat

Good lord! First there was Bennifer, then Brangelina, now TomKat... Who will put an end to this insanity??

DVD: Review: Team America: World Police

Hysterical - it's amazing how funny it can be when you take a simple shot of a character being serious when that character is a puppet. However, you really have to like South Park-style potty humor to enjoy it (perfect example: the theme song, entitled "America! F*%k Yeah!!"). Crude as it is, it also gives the audience a somewhat sobering look at how the rest of the world sees Americans, if you're paying attention. It seems funny to us, but it's probably not too far from the truth - that we seem like a bunch of cowboys willing to blow up an entire city to get rid of a couple of bad guys. If you watch it, think about our involvement in the middle east and you'll see what they're getting at. I think this subtlety is the reason some people regard Trey Paker and Matt Stone as contemporary geniuses.

As with just about all Parker-Stone material, it's definitely not for kids - the label says it all: "Rated R for language, violence and sex - all involving puppets."

Bottom line: definitely see it, but only if you're a South Park fan. If you are, you won't be disappointed.

Entertainment: Stop the name-concatenation madness!!

First there was "Bennifer", now we have "Brangelina" - make it stop!!

Projects: Linux for Phil's old PC

Phil, the nephew of one of our friends, had an old beat-up IBM Aptiva (AMD K6, 128MB RAM, 10GB HD) laying around that wasn't working very well with Win XP. I told his uncle I'd take it as a pet project to resurrect the old clunker as a Linux box, so he could have something to use for his writing hobby.

At first, I downloaded Debian Linux - with 6 or 7 CD's and no indication of which ones could be ignored, this was quite a cumbersome process. When I finally got around to booting up the first CD, I had to know how I wanted the partitions done, and I'm a computer guy, but not quite a Linux pro, so I did what I thought would work - I gave it a small boot partition, one for swap, and one for everything else. The install went through, but when I booted it up and it tried to run Gnome, the screen was just a garbled mess. Having no idea how to fix it, I looked on the web to see what people consider the easiest Linux, and found Ubuntu.

Ubuntu was one CD, so downloading was a breeze and took only about 15-20 minutes. For Debian, I had to use BitTorrent and it took several days to get all the CD images. I popped in the Ubuntu CD, booted it up, and it pretty much configured everything itself. It detected and auto-configured the network card (which Debian didn't do) and auto-partitioned my disk (a relief for me and any other Linux non-pro). There were a couple of problems due to the crappy old CD-ROM drive that was in the machine, but it recovered pretty gracefully after a reboot. However, just to be sure I replaced it with an old CD burner I had that was still in good shape, and everything went fine. After a couple of normal reboots to finish up the install, the system booted perfectly to Gnome, and I was able to log in and immediately start surfing the web with Firefox and create docs with OpenOffice.org.

If you have a machine that's even slightly newer than this one (made in the last 5 years or so), switching to Ubuntu Linux should be a viable option for you, even if you're not a computer geek. It pretty much took care of everything for me, which was something I've been looking for. I was pleasantly surprised - perhaps Linux is finally a viable option for the masses looking to move away from Windows.

If you're going to resurrect an old machine that seems to be out of commission, one thing I also recommend is to open the box and get a can of compressed air from your local electronics store. Use the air and a vacuum or DustBuster to remove the enormous amounts of dust that have likely built up in there over the years, especially on the CPU fan and in the power source fan. Very few people do this, and it's one of the main reasons people's PC's "blow up" - the processor or the power source overheat due to dust build-up. It's a shame, because it's completely avoidable and simple cleaning twice a year or so can greatly extend the life of your PC.

DVD: Review: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

This was one that I was curious about, so I talked my wife into getting it. Overall an entertaining, original story with a stylish look. Jim Carrey is his usual self - some of his antics reminded me of Ace Ventura and Liar Liar, but a good performance all the same.

What bothered us about this movie is the context of the whole story - Count Olaf (Carrey) is trying to murder these sweet little kids throughout the entire movie to get at their family's fortune, and murders several of their guardians along the way. If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my kids watching this (or reading it) unless they were over 13 or so, and could deal with the issues of death and killing without being influenced by movies. Therein lies the problem - this is supposed to be a kids' movie (I think). Now I'm not one to complain about violence in movies or stuff like that, but this movie is geared toward kids, and deals with murder in a nonchalant sort of way. When each of their guardians are murdered (once right in front of them), they aren't traumatized like they should be, they're just like, "you monster!" and then they move on. It's no wonder death and killing are so ho-hum in the minds of today's youth. Attitudes like this are what's causing teenagers to kill people for fun. I'm not saying this movie alone would do that, it's a trend in the American psyche toward the devaluation of human life.

There, I'll step off my soapbox now.

Bottom Line: Rent it for adults and older teenagers - don't get it for smaller kids if you don't want to be disturbed by what it's telling them.

DVD: Review: Ladder 49

We rented Ladder 49 the other night, and I wasn't expecting anything great. But obviously I'm taking the time to write about it so that's something right there. It was a well-told, emotionally gripping story (read: "tear-jerker") with amazing special effects and awesome sound. The only negative was that with John Travolta, for some reason, anger never comes through with him. Maybe he just comes off as too nice a guy for us to believe he's ever angry. Other than that, a great movie.

Bottom line: If you haven't seen it, rent it this weekend - especially if you have a nice theater system. It'll give your subwoofer a workout, and it looks awesome on an HD monitor.