Moving Day Part II: Moving Sucks

I have been bombarded by a nasty little cold which basically made me sleep for 80% of my day. I woke up in the afternoon to check mail and what not. I found out my package was absconded with on tuesday night before i got back home. With the package being in-front of my apartment door a mere 2 hrs. I woke up a second time around 730ish pm. Went back to sleep realizing that i still need to call utilities. Thus is the reason why i am up at 4am.

Welcome to A Shameless Plug

Moving really just sucks. If I was moving for the pleasure of having a kick ass place. I don't think I would be as bitter. But I have to track my ass back from the east coast to Alaska. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Alaska. best state out there. I have roughly 4 years of just stuff accumulated. Now I get to find a freight service that goes to Alaska; reserve a parking space from the county for a day; slap the boxes on there and send it off on its merry way. I was considering driving my crap back, but 1500+ dollars? I do not think so.

I still get to call my utilities tomorrow and tell em i am leaving this place and forward all bills to alaska. The hardest part of this fiasco is going to cancel my cellphone. My current provider has NO STORES OR RETAIL SUPPORT (e.g. best buy) in Alaska. SO that'll be fun.

I'm considering a movie tomorrow. it is five bucks at the first showing, if so you might get a lovely review. probably or "Meet the Spartans". I'm not sure if I will or won't. Parodies are pretty hit or miss.

I thought I would be writing more. However, I'm pretty damn achy and my legs want to fall off. I think I'm going to bed try to sleep and distract myself with some Star Trek or Clint Eastwood.

have a good morrow children,

An Indifferent Cloverfield Review

A quick intro to my reviewing style. I prefer to give a recommendation that is for the general public. Not for the niche groups out there or a personal preference. However, I must admit that last remark is a bit of a lie since movie reviews and selection at the "blog" level is all about opinion and personal preference. I digress. I try to evaluate the film to what tries to present and what it accomplish.
For example:
I recently went to watch Alien Verses Predator: Requiem. I expecting just about nothing and had a blast. The real question to address is: Would I recommend this film to the viewing public. Probably not. It is best for the Predator or Alien fans and the sci-fi/horror genre. It does accomplish what it came out to do, but don't have high expectations. Go to the cheap show too.
I hope you all enjoy this brief review of mine.




When I saw the first teaser of Cloverfield, I thought it was going to be a 9-11 film. I was expecting many jerky camera angles abound and a strong sense of patriotism; kind of like WTC, but not as preachy. I may have preferred if it was such a movie because then I could have seen a whole film. For the record, I did watch some subsequent trailers and found out it was a monster movie. Also, I will try not to spoil the movie very much. If you do leave comments, my non-exsistant readers, then please try not to spoil for others or at the very least have a label warning or two.

I would like to delve into some plot points of the film, but that would spoil the film too much. As I said before, I would like not to spoil the film for those who want to see it still. So lets talk a little about the monster with vague details, then get to the heart of the matter. I actually did a little extra reading before i wrote this bloggified review. Listed in the wikipedia entry for Cloverfield, it states that Abrams wanted to make a movie monster for "our generation". One that wasn't Godzilla or Gamera like. He wanted something new and different. The creature design and concept was a nice classic approach that had some familiar somewhat modern [movie] concepts to it. This alone could not save the film.

I'm not saying Cloverfield is a horrible film. I want to recommend the film. It is well made. The shaky cam was not too distracting to the presentation. At least there was some justification to sixty percent of the shaky. To give the film a word, it would be: quite decent. Hell, it even made sense to why we watch this movie through a video camera. The film had a strong and consistent plot. There is a great sense of connectivity between characters, especially the two main leads. The unfortunate side turned its ugly head once the film had ending. It felt as if I had only seen half of a film.

Yes, Internet. I know I am suppose to interpret what happens after the film, but damn they don't give you much left to work with. When I leave a film with questions to be answered, I like to have three quarters pre-fulfilled. I see the world as a half filled kind of guy, to me that is what this movie felt like. Half Full. The main concept presented was "How do normal folk try to survive a monster attack". In addition the plot involves time, save a relationship between the two main characters. I find it an interesting approach to the monster genre. Less is more is fine and good for the monster's scattered appearances. I understand that the film wanted to focus on the couple and citizen's reaction to a disaster to this scale. The romance subplot seemed to be a major factor point. Enduring love and all that good stuff.

If you want a traditional monster movie, don't go to Cloverfield. There are no stereotypical scientists. There is no exposition about the creature's creation. There is no explanation to his ravaging (thou to be honest, do you really need one for a monster movie?). I found these qualities of the film the most charming. I wish there was a bit more monster thou.

The film does try and partially succeeds with its goals of creating a new monster for the 21st century and having a new perspective on the monster genre. It does fall flat when it trying to be different as well. A moviegoer is presented with a partial story, which I hope is intentional. Aside from the main characters, their objectives, the appearance of the and the ravaging there after from the monster; almost all other elements of the story were left to the viewers imagination. I find this a bit unfair. Even from the small snips of the world Cloverfield is from; there is a definite story about the world out there for the viewers to learn. Much like the mayonnaise jar that to the world of Lost, the world of Cloverfield is only released bit by bit. Unfortunate for us, we don't get seasons of Cloverfield for things to be exposed. There is some promising news of a sequel if the movie does well. Oh, and in Japan, there is a plan to create a manga that will act as a prequel to the movie's events.

In the end, I have a strong indifference to recommending the film for the general public. It is good enough for the matinee, but not for shelling out the full movie price of ten dollars. I only paid 9.75, but I still want to makers of Lost to give me my 4.75 back or at least a couple (meaning two, three is NOT a couple) free downloads from iTunes for their show.

I give the film:
2.5 out of five Babylons

A Declaration of Activities and Moving Day Part 1

This year I might actually post more than once a year. Hey I did post twice in '07, kind of...
There are to many movies out there for me to ignore anymore. My friend joe and I had a podcast for movies the year after last till we drifted from it. I will throw them in here with the tag/label of "2008 movies" as well as their names. I will be watching Cloverfield either tonight or tomorrow night.
Also, I will be blogging me and my friend's exploits of various restuarnts in the Anchorage area. We would like to dub Food King Tour '08 (with pictures of course) but more on that later

Back to the topic on hand

So I will get the pleasure of moving about 1/3 of my apartment back to my home state of Alaska from the east coast. I've decided to freight my crap, but damn it's hard to find ANYONE to freight with. I'm avoiding the likes of FedEx and UPS Freight. I found one, I may have found a second, but still a bit uncertain. For all I know, I might just use the USPS and UPS again. I would rather not. I think it would cost oodles of moneys.

One of the biggest projects in this mess is NOT getting a pallet, NOR is it getting the many boxes I will need for it, BUT* rather the 630+ dvds I have to ship roughly 3000 miles (about 4,828 Km for our metric friends out there. you know who you are, don't be ashamed. although you should...) Thanks to working at an anime store that does a many conventions, I know how to pack dvds very well

I will be craig listing 90% of my furniture
I almost miss college dorm/apartments just for the fact they were furnished and I did not have to sell a futon and various other things. I think this will be the hardest move i have done in my life so far. Til I get settled down again. :P

Anyway, I will be sending a picture of my boxes of DVDs to Shelf Obsessed, just to see what kind of response i get. I will have a story of course; with such a weird picture, I need a story for it.

Well I'm tired of writing.
I'll talk to you children later




*i love caps