The Center Seat

Are they?

Of course they are. They're people, like any brand of geeks. Kind of like movie geeks, really.

Hackers Are People Too is actually a documentary produced by hackers; it premiered at this year's DefCon in Las Vegas.

As I'm not very familiar with that particular subculture, the movie appealed to the Discovery Channel in me. It was interesting... and educational... but perhaps a hazard of a movie produced by its subject is that it came off as a little self-serving. I'm thinking the goal of the film was to humanize hackers to the general public, but in all honesty, hackers would probably enjoy it more than any other group of people.

Still, it's fairly interesting, and less than an hour. If you swing that way, you can get it for $10 here. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

I hadn't heard much about this action/adventure/sci-fi/ *yawn*/thriller until reading this post by Fox over at Lazy Eye Theatre... not good.

It's generally a really bad sign if both the director and the lead actor of a movie brutally trash it during promotion season. Bad, bad sign.

I've known David Bishop for about a year and a half. He is officially one of my favorite "Internet people". He also, by virtue of his impeccable (read: similar to my) taste in movies, is one of the three or so people on the planet who can be called my Movie Muse. About 90% of his recommendations make it onto my Netflix queue.

It was at David's suggestion that I rented The Shop Around the Corner, a 1940 film starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. I've been a fan of You've Got Mail since it first came out, and The Shop Around the Corner is the chief inspiration (along with AOL, I guess) for You've Got Mail.

Both films center around a man and woman who correspond with each other as mystery pen pals, and who coincidentally know (and hate) one another in real life. Of course, eventually the jig is up, they discover the identity of the other, and fall madly in love.

Yeah. This could never, ever happen. So why do I like the idea so much?

Aside from these basic plot points, the two movies really aren't that similar. Really, how could they be? One is set in a leather goods shop in 1940's Budapest while the other is set in New York City, half a decade later, with the disembodied voice of America Online ("You've got mail!") as the third lead character.


Let's start with The Shop Around the Corner. Like I said, I enjoy the basic premise, unrealistic as it may be. But somehow Stewart and Sullavan never muster enough chemistry to convince the viewer that they like each other after all. It just seems clunky, abrupt, and absolutely un-romantic. Even the subplot of an affair with the boss' wife comes off as superfluous and, frankly, boring.

In You've Got Mail, on the other hand, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan knock it out of the park. Come on, we all knew they were fantastic every time they share screen space. I've loved them in everything they've done. (What's that? Even Joe vs. the Volcano, you ask? Especially Joe vs. the Volcano.) I think the plot could be crafted by Mary Higgins Clark, and these two would still sell it. I should point out, though that this script was very well crafted. The dialogue is superb (remember Tom Hanks' character relating every life problem to something from The Godfather?)--and in the subplot department: Meg Ryan's little shop being driven out of business by Tom Hanks' Barnes & Noble-esque leviathan was topical and touching.


All that having been said, it is a little distracting watching the workings of the Internet circa 1999, but that was inevitable given how heavily the film relied on a fleeting technological gimmick.

So this is why I let David influence me so much. The Shop Around the Corner was not nearly as entertaining as my pick, You've Got Mail, but I'm really glad I saw it. My appreciation of this fluffy little romantic comedy is greatly enhanced by having seen its predecessor.

Next up on the Netflix queue, at David's (and Nathaniel's) urging: Memento. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

This is a fantastic date movie. I saw it on a date with myself last night. That sounds pathetic, doesn't it? It really wasn't. I don't get nearly enough me-time anymore. I caught Vicky Cristina Barcelona, then headed to Panera for a turkey-artichoke panini, copious amounts of herbal tea, and free wi-fi. Couldn't have been a more perfect evening. Gotta do it more.

Do you like Woody Allen movies? I mean the really good, older ones? If you do, then you'll enjoy this movie. It's an exquisitely crafted story, full of dynamic characters (who make crazy-ass choices), stunning Barcelona cityscapes (I want to go! I so want to go), and yummy Spanish accents.


Vicky Cristina Barcelona's cast is a big part of what makes it so enjoyable. Javier Bardem is so natural in his native surroundings. He's very sensual, but his obvious comfort in that setting put me at ease, too. I reacted with a lot more "Rowwrrr" than "Run, he's got a weird air-gun thingie!!!" this time. Kind of refreshing. Penelope Cruz is also much easier to stomach when she's speaking Spanish. (Exhibit A: Volver. If you haven't seen it, do.) Scarlet Johansson was surprisingly non-annoying, and I have to say I love this new actress, Rebecca Hall. She reminded me of Anna Popplewell (Susan in the Narnia movies), but ten years older and sexualized.

What really works in this movie is the narration. It's the main vehicle for moving the plot along, it adds a great stylistic element, but my favorite thing is that it gives the viewer a feeling of reading the movie, like it's a novel.

If you like interesting, thought-provoking films, then I highly recommend this one. If, on the other hand, you prefer vanilla Lifetime Originals with no loose ends, see something else. Honestly, I wish I could go back in time and explain this to the group of cranky biddies sitting behind me last night. Just because it's not Danielle Steele doesn't make it a bad movie. Quite the contrary, actually. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

I massively enjoyed Man On Wire, a documentary about a guy who walked a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I shit you not.

Click on the links below to read some reviews by two of my favorite movie men.

Fletch at Blog Cabins
Daniel G at Getafilm

Reason #57,483 why I love living alone: the freedom to weep loudly and shamelessly in my living room while watching sappy girl movies. (I saw Stepmom and The Notebook last night.)

Remember when Star Wars used to be cool? Groundbreaking, even. But that was like 25 years ago. I was a cute little cherub in pigtails.

I've moved on, and so should George Lucas. MSN critic Jim Emerson agrees.

On the Tomatometer: 23%. It's not pretty.

Update: Click the link for another great reason NOT to see this one, presented by the brilliant Piper of Lazy Eye Theater.

I hated high school.

It just wasn't for me. I think I'm too much of a non-conformist. As a result, I got made fun of and usually ate lunch at a table by myself, with a book to help pass the 25 minutes. I dated the choir dork (with a voice like a sick mule) and the Star Trek geek (you don't even understand--he wore Star Trek t-shirts to school every day). I did exceptionally well in my classes without really trying, which also added to my social troubles. And I was chubby. So, not a fun four years.

Watching American Teen last weekend was like sitting in the visitors' SUV at Jurassic Park if all had gone well. You sit in the comfort of your protected environment, watch the Tyrannosaurus munch on the goat, you feel a bit of empathy for the goat, but then you also thank your lucky stars that the T-Rex's paddock is electrified.

I remained in the (relative) comfort of Uptown Theatre, watching the carnage (the Tyrannosaurus in this case is blonde, athletic, and goes by the name of Megan Krizmanich), and remembered. The movie depicts a world just like mine 15-odd years ago, sans the texting, instant messaging, and other scary new ways kids can hurt each other.

I would so have been friends with Hannah Bailey in real life.

American Teen's realism is startling, but it's also a very entertaining documentary. I found myself rooting for these adolescent underdogs at least as much as I did for The King of Kong. Oh yeah, and the soundtrack kicks ass. Definitely worth seeing.

...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

Yeah. I know. I'm massively late.

That tends to happen when I see a movie and can't bring myself to talk about it. Sometimes that's because my love for the movie runs so deeply (see: Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and sometimes it has more to do with a sense of disappointment, which ends up morphing into indifference.

That's the case here.

Before The Dark Knight's debut, buzz was running higher than I've ever seen it in my short tenure as a film geek. I was excited, too, but there was a definite vein of skepticism running through it. Obviously a big cause of that buzz is, of course, Heath Ledger's stunning performance followed by his untimely death. Hey, I was stunned by the trailers, too. I thought it looked great before he died. But then the tragedy came, and people were all jumping on the bandwagon, yelling, "Oscar!" As nice as that sounds, if he gets that Oscar I want it to be for the right reasons (a career-topping performance), not because of sympathy, or regret. That way it can be a real victory, undiminished by legitimate criticism. It's sad that a great performance may have been overshadowed by all this hysteria.

I hate to do it, people, but we need to get real. Heath Ledger was a fantastic actor. One of my favorites of all time. He almost always delivered a stellar, mind-blowing performance, from 10 Things I Hate About You, to A Knight's Tale, to The Dark Knight. But in my opinion, none of that, even his turn as the Joker, even came close to Brokeback Mountain. That performance actually haunted me for a few days. I'm really sorry, but Dark Knight is no Brokeback.

Others have been saying The Dark Knight was the best movie of 2008, or even the GREATEST MOVIE EVER. Not so. Sorry. It's a superhero movie. It's a good superhero movie, but it never reaches beyond the conventions and limitations of that genre. You always know what's coming... you can sit in the theater and say, OK, we're only an hour into it, so there will be about 3 more suspenseful climaxes....

And I'm sorry, but Christian Bale's voice modulation whenever he put that suit on was super-distracting. It's like the second he got in that mask, he needed to get his Darth Vader on too. I think the role would have been far more interesting if he had lost that weird affectation.

Now, I don't want you to think I didn't like this movie. I did. Ledger was great. Gyllenhaal was great. Freeman was great. Eckhart was great. Oldman was great. Bale was great (except for the whole voice thing). Et cetera.

It truly was, by far, better than any of the pre-Batman Begins Batman stuff. But it was not the best movie of 2008. Perspective, people. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.