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<title>Keith's Web Blog RSS Feed</title>
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<description>Keith Watanabe's Website</description>
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<title>Lord of the Rings Triology</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/2/11/26b283ddd6eece4fe1a1dea65387dd14.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[It's hard to make a statement about such a thing that has received so many statements.  However, as this is my homepage that I've paid for and built with my own hours of labor, I'm allowing myself the luxury of blabbing on a bit about a story that has really taken hold of me.

I haven't watched any of the series in theatres as of yet.  My exposure has been completely through the DVDs and extended DVDs (yes, I actually purchased my versions as I find them to be well worth the money).  And the fact that I actually purchased them should be a statement of my partiality towards this movie.

There are many critics out there who have assessed various ratings for and against this movie.  I think most people who are towards the extreme ends are either too blind by their fealty towards the series or are brainwashed by the media/MTV.  For myself, I've viewed it in two manners.

First, I viewed it in a critical nature.  This past year I've finally sat myself down and read the series.  I've seen the Ralph Bashki version when I was a child.  That cartoon was what originally gave interest to me in the series as well as my general interest in fantasy literature (and games).  However, up until now, I've never taken the opportunity to read the books.  The whole triology regained my interest in the books as I wanted to see what would happen after the first movie ended.

Yes, I knew what would happen as I also had viewed the animated Return of the King as a child.  But that wasn't the point.  The point was to engage myself in Tolkien's world and compare that with Jackson and company's vision.  For the most part, I think Jackson did a praiseworthy job.

One of my biggest approbations of his interpretation was that, from the start, they grabbed the right conceptual artists who would be a major factor in giving the movie a real life.  It wasn't just grabbing some hack kids off the street to illustrate the series.  It was people who were dedicated for many years that fans were already familiar with that had the opportunity to participate in this event.  To me that was a true sincerity as the artistic vision would be preserved with us that had become fond of the Tolkien.

Next, I found myself becoming closer to the actors themselves with each passing episode.  Now, perhaps a good part of that is attributable to my viewing of the off camera shots that tend to humanize actors rather than glamorize them.  But at the same time, I found myself sensing more bonds that the actors and their characters would draw from each other with each passing movie.  

Naturally, there are debates about this.  I think most people frown upon the arbitrary ways Jackson and crew edited Tolkien's story and would re-work it into their own idiom.  Hardcore fanatics naturally feel this way.  However, given the environment that Jackson and crew were working with (namely Hollywood and a limited amount of time on the screen), you can say that, at the very least, they were able to portray enough of the characters to generate feeling of the story.  You have to realize that this is an epic story being shot within around 9-10 hours total.  You have to balance this out with these parameters and virtually a new generation of people who barely know the name Tolkien.

Going back to the cast, I thought most were done very well.  Naturally, I think the biggest ones people will end up remembering are Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, and of course Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen.  That's not to say the rest of the cast failed, but that these people in particular just stood out far beyond.  In addition to this crew, I found myself extremely partial to Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, and Orlando Bloom.  Also, I'm a perpertual fan of Ian Holm as he played Ash in my all-time favorite Alien.  Still, the cast each took advantage of what they were given.

I think my only dislike in terms of casting was Liv Tyler.  I think it was more because of the type of role she was given rather than the fact that she was in it at all.  Yes, she was able to take advantage of her portion as well, but I just felt that she added nothing and actually was a distraction that slowed the pace rather than enriched the storyline.  But she's received enough flack from the rest of the internet so I'll leave her at that.

Setting: Just magnificent.  I've met people from New Zealand before, but I never really thought about their landscape when I was hanging with them.  Now after seeing this movie, it makes me a huge admirer of their land.  As of now, I'm in Tokyo which is just barren of nature, imo.  It's more akin to the lands of Mordor with it's concrete streets and the sound of industry pulsing everywhere (note: that's just Tokyo; outside is wonderful).  Seeing the natural vertiginous zones and sweeping shots sent chills down my back as it drew me into this realm that sometimes seemed more real than the one I currently inhabit.  One of the subtle things I think the series has done was produce a storyline was the various wideshots of the countryside of New Zealand.  You get a real feeling of traveling rather than a few guys running up and down hills all day long.

Sets: What can I say?  Jackson and company were able to accomplish my life long dream: do the war of Helms Deep and Gondor.  After seeing the animated versions of these movies, I've always been motivated to collect enough Lego to replicate those scenes.  But to see it on screen has been a real treat.  Beyond those, I'd say that there wasn't a set that wasn't wrought with the dignity and realism that I could imagine from such a large scale production.

I think two of the best sets that I had been longing to view were the Dead Marshes and the Witch King's citadel.  The Dead Marshes has been a favorite of mine since seeing one of these conceptual drawings as a kid.  I had been horrified and fascinated simultaneously by this scene.  It's one of those that really gives you the chills as you can see these two little hobbits and this nasty creature slipping through a fen in the dark (although this was done during the day).  Then around them little wisps of light flicker about.  Suddenly, eerie faces are conjured in the swamp as Frodo peers too deep and is but rescued in time by an unlikely saviour.  Just the pinnacle of dark fantasy for me.

The Witch King's citadel caught my attention completely when I saw the previews for the third part.  It's a fantastic scene where the citadel lights up with this ghastly light-blue-green color that swirls towards the heavens and emits this sound.  The colors used in that scene aren't ones you'd normally imagine from a castle.  But I think having those colors gave dimension to the scene and made it really stand out.

Still, you can say that for most of the sets in the movie.  As I mentioned though, these are the ones that really thrilled me.

The culture of Tolkien's world I think was brought to life well.  The scenes and sounds reminded me a bit of some games I played like Baldur's Gate 2 where you visit the elf lands.  Sure, there is a commonality among them, but bringing to life on the big screen is what really makes a movie.

Some subtle points I've been curious about were the food.  I think one of the most interesting characteristics that we will never get to experience is the food used in the movie.  Naturally, the lembas bread is one of the focal points in the story.  When you look at such a device, it makes you wonder what that aspect would actually taste like.  A shame that as a society we don't really manufacture something like that.  It would definitely be efficient for survival (or maybe lemba's bread is astronaut food?)

The whole feeling of the story is just intimate.  It really grows on you and gives you a sense of triumph as it closes and shows our values as a people.  The messages aren't sophisticated yet their poignant and relevant to our lives.  For me it's made me feel like a child again, re-exposing my imagination to the realms that I would explore as a kid.  I think a good movie produces a catharsis and this one had indeed left me crying in the end because as a journey, as companions and as messages I felt something like a full complete circle.  Not all movies are capable of handling this, but this movie had the endurance, patience and craft to drive home this feeling.

Thank you Peter Jackson and company.  I think you've taken a bow, but let me take this one for you.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2004 19:34:09 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/2/11/26b283ddd6eece4fe1a1dea65387dd14.html</guid>
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<title>2001: A Space Odyssey</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/2/29/c653f720507e32494e0a3c2302bf0ce3.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Been catching up on some Kubric movies lately.  Finally, got to see 2001 from start to finish.  Yeah, I know where have I been?  I guess watching the same old, boring movies over and over.  Needed some "fresh" stuff.  Can't stand most new movies so I've been turning to the classics.  Too many reviews written on this one.  Just got to say that my favorite parts are the beginning which is kinda Darwinian and the portions where the scientists are eating their meals.  I've always wondered what the real contents of their meals were.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 29 Feb 2004 01:30:20 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/2/29/c653f720507e32494e0a3c2302bf0ce3.html</guid>
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<title>Governator</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/4/23/b26c231082ffe87304beda9c0317b650.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Saw Terminator 3 a few weeks ago.  Just a god awful movie.  How can people call this anything above zero stars?  To sum it up: one hour of a car crash.  The ending is the only portion you can take seriously, but by then you're laughing so hard at the ridiculous one liners and "science" that you're not ready to digest what seems like a lead for a continuation.  James Cameron should whack whomever this joker is that blemished his original movie.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Apr 2004 10:50:24 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/4/23/b26c231082ffe87304beda9c0317b650.html</guid>
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<title>Tomb Raider 2</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/4/23/57f01af1aa69b49fd47a6b3054f00426.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Might as well call this "Raiders Part 5" because it's more of the same.  Beautiful scenery is probably the only decent comment I can make against this horrid series.  If Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Goldberg are the kings of no-selling in wrestling, Laura Croft comes as the same for onscreen characters.  Come on!  There's no challenge for this character.  She walks over things without any sense of challenge.  They should have a movie where she's pitted against James Bond because they'd form anti-matter with their inability to destroy each other.

And again this movie comes off anti-climatical.  There's nothing that leaves you wishing for a third and there's nothing that you feel in the end of this movie.  About the only character you can care for is Croft's arch-nemesis but he jobs to her ego.  Hollywood better find writers, not people who just take their daily toilet contents and dump it to screen.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Apr 2004 10:54:31 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/4/23/57f01af1aa69b49fd47a6b3054f00426.html</guid>
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<title>Alien Quadrilogy DVD Set</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/1/a544c56ba3a44b7daefd3d1a292138d5.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[If you're a hardcore fan of the Alien series, this is a must-buy!  I haven't gone over the third and fourth movies yet (nor have I ever seen the 4th one for that matter), but I've found this set for all the extras to be excellent!  The commentaries, interviews and behind the scenes footage alone make it worth getting.  The Alien and Aliens DVD sets were already good buys as they were some of the few that really took advantage of DVD technology.  But this set, indeed, is for people like myself who are just fanatics about the movie.

Even if I've seen the first two a hundred times or so, I can never get enough.  And now with the director's cut, I get a whole new perspective on the movie!  I must say that the extras alone are worth the hefty price.  And here's the killer thing: my little DVD player on my system (running linux) can play it out here in Japan!  Sweet!

Just a super buy.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 01 May 2004 09:00:58 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/1/a544c56ba3a44b7daefd3d1a292138d5.html</guid>
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<title>Paycheck</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/11/58a7a71c1d26c788c506706be619e991.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I had nothing to do on the way back from LA to Tokyo and sat through this movie.  Typical Hollywood vomit.  I haven't seen much John Woo stuff but this movie didn't motivate me any further to go rent out his stuff.  It's set a bit in the future (no pun on the movie intended) where Ben Affleck is trying to discover his past.  The one thing that moves this movie away from the standard formula of this genre is that Affleck literally pieces together his past through clues he sends himself in an envelope to trigger what he sees in the future for himself.

The way he pieces together the clues is somewhat intriguing as well as the surrounding near-future scenes, such as the customized video wall sales people at the Gap, etc.  However, this movie is basically John Woo masturbating in his self-glory of getting to direct another Hollywood pet in some meaningless action nose flick.  Uma Thurman is Affleck's wife that is attempting to recapture her power from the Kill Bill series.  It just doesn't work though as their relationship holds no emotion whatsoever.  And her lines are delivered without emphasis.

I think the thing that really irked me was that Ben Affleck is supposed to be a kickass genius.  When are geniuses kickass?  Geeks are a bunch of losers who look at computers all day long and either are fat and out of shape with no girlfriend (or someone that shares similar [physical] characteristics as them) or some scrawny Star Trek gawker.  Affleck is someone who fights in this movie!  He's a geek for god sakes!  Outside of that fact and how he should've been killed at least a million times in his McGuiver-wannabe style portrait.

Recommendation: use the toilet before seeing this drek.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 May 2004 22:47:54 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/11/58a7a71c1d26c788c506706be619e991.html</guid>
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<title>Bulks Series on DVD</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/15/2b6aa577aedba613a6b0716e61efc397.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Something that I really like about some of these DVD producers is that they've been selling whole series in a bundle.  This is excellent and actually is better than *cough* downloading *cough* as the quality is excellent and gives you everything for a reasonable price.  I prefer this trend than trying to grab something off a certain network device :p  

It's a shame that the music industry doesn't follow suit and sell high volume music for cheap without the CD protection.  I mean, I'd love to get my hands on volumes of 80's music or heavy metal collections.  I don't see why it's so unreasonable to release a DVD with mp3 collections for a reasonable price?  It's not like everyone is going to the stores to purchase Duran Duran everyday.  But they might be interested in picking up 500 songs from the 80's on DVD.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 15 May 2004 17:14:32 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/15/2b6aa577aedba613a6b0716e61efc397.html</guid>
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<title>Matrix Revolutions</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/18/237fde00c530b679094a8b202a60bf7f.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I'm not a fan of Keannu Reaves.  In fact, I think the guy is a complete dork.  However, when he wasn't in this movie, the action was pretty cool.  Probably the major fight scenes kept my adrenaline pumping throughout the entire movie, especially the fight at the dock.  Forgoing the horrid "acting", the dock fight was as close to something as you'd call digital art as possible.  Mifune's death scene is one of those great heroic death scenes.  Not his death throes in his hamburger'd face, but just how he wasted in that rush of droids that just swarm his vehicle.

The characters were mostly cliche and the cliches were so far cliched that you could remove the voice overs and not change much.  It's the landscape of this pulverized world that leaves you pondering what you are witnessing.  That is art to me.  Attempting to partly define meaning in something that has no overt meaning.  If you avoid the mostly trite (or tripe) dialogue in this mundane story, the visual effects of course are the real draw.  The dock fight scene itself is, indeed, worth obtaining this movie (and probably is the only reason, imo, to watch it)

The earlier points do not reach higher plateaus than what the original one established.  The second one brought an interesting character in the Architect to describe the philosophy and elevate the conversations into a more erudite level (where Keannu's expressions of frustration, imo, are more due to him not *truly* understanding what the architect really is saying).  However, the visuals do climax in a satisfying display of what the world potentially could come to as a Orwellian nightmare.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 May 2004 00:05:13 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/18/237fde00c530b679094a8b202a60bf7f.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>League of Extraordinary Tripe</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/22/fd25db9c6b9ecfa0c94474788782a697.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[The first time I saw the preview, I felt the title alone revealed more Hollywood clutter.  However, this was marked as a "Still Hot" item at my local Tsutaya so I decided to pick it up just for the hell of it.  I should've gone with my gut instinct on this.  Then again it doesn't take a brain surgeon to predict the continual sludge of uninspired dribble coming from Hollywood these days.

First of all, it made no sense to me.  Even though this is take on some comic book, I could tell just by the ridiculous advertising that it had some basis in that realm.  The only remarkable part I could discern from the get go was Sean Connery being a major player.  Probably that alone was my only motivation in seeing this film.  However, he barely looked like he was trying in this movie.  Despite his presence, the little dialogue strewn among the explosions vaguely gave me any notion of the direction the movie was going towards.  Worse yet, having so many cast members in limited, unrememberable roles, you had to pick things up quickly.   Most of it was just name dropping that the writer/director hoped the audience would recognize in an attempt to further the "plot." 

Yet this is more, typical Hollywood tripe in that it just contains insipid action that guarantees meaningless explosions that's supposed to outdo itself every time.  Even when Dorian Gray turns against the League, you're still questioning the whole thing because the action has taken far too much precedence over the basic plot.

Then there's Tom Sawyer.  I wanted to start singing, "A modern-day warrior
Mean mean stride Today's Tom Sawyer
Mean mean pride."  I mean, after all the European actors filter the screen, they had to bring this joker along.  The obvious resonance is for being accepted by the American public for which Hollywood bows to.  Are they afraid that Connery's name alone cannot carry a movie?  It's not like getting Zhang Ziyi to play the whole show without subtitles.  More than that, supposedly this guy doesn't even exist in the comic!

Well, good thing I'm not a fan of this crap.  It's just a way to kill brain cells.  Crack and other drugs do that too, but Hollywood movies are just a legalized (and approved) method.




]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 22 May 2004 23:38:43 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/22/fd25db9c6b9ecfa0c94474788782a697.html</guid>
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<title>Death to Smoochy</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/29/4724a498f718c8528862a969b6b83a09.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I saw the preview for this sometime ago.   Wasn't really expecting this.  But then again it has Robin Williams with Danny Devitto directing so you're going to get some witty, gangsta type of dialogue.  I've always been a big fan of Williams, even though he's not the primary focus of this movie.  Yet he does manage to steal the parts playing more or less a schizophrenic maniac in his paranoid deluded world.

This movie reminds me a lot of my work place.  All the politics, lies, and deception just to get a percentage.  In some perverse way, I identified with Edward Norton's character, someone who wants not to change the world, but to make a dent where possible.  He's surrounded by a host of dishonest rats, but through his perserverence and integrity, he manages to sway the hearts of normally dark people.  At work, I try to do the same, instead converting the Japanese severe work aesthetic, into one of free dialogue and comfort.  Right now two of my co-workers have already been assimilated, so I know the Smoochy way of doing things works :)

I think one of the interesting statements of the show was how this kid network was run by a sleuth of crooked executives and connected to various underground socities.  One curious part was where at the beginning Robin Williams makes a small deal with some couple who want their child to be cast on stage next to him.  Of course, that's all a rouse to upstage him which in turn  causes his downfall.

This movie shares many parallels with Swimming with Sharks in its notoriety of the entertainment industry.  With all the insider jokes that's displayed in recent satire about Hollywood, one has to wonder how it manages to operate.  Of course, that probably can be explained somewhat through the references of mafias that negotiate their presence through raw bullying.  In seeing something like this, I often ponder what would happen if you got a bunch of lawyers, politicians, entertainment execs and stock traders into a single room and played "Survivor."]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 29 May 2004 18:18:20 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/29/4724a498f718c8528862a969b6b83a09.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Greedy Shoot First?</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/31/5a75169d384b29b13d55104c7a4429e0.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I never really came into this "controversial" issue on the net until Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.  There's a great quote from them regarding Lucas' movie (actually the quote is from Ben Affleck's character): 

"I mean, I don't think I'm alone in the world in imagining this flick may be the worst idea since Greedo shooting first."

I find this to the best quote in the movie and kinda set me on a little quest to find the origins of this issue.  After some google searches, I noticed that there's a huge inverted orgasm of loyal Star Wars fruitcases who obsessively and vehemently protest the whole thing of Lucas re-editing the scene so that Greedo's character shoots before Han does in the movie.  Most people chastize the characterization of Han's darker character which grows to someone who is more trusting towards the end.  To me the whole issue is overblown and a waste of time.  Then again that's the whole argument of teenagers, time and the internet these days.

As far as I'm concerned, the scene just looks silly and it really doesn't affect me one way or another.  The real message behind all this should've been Lucas' decision to re-re-reinvent Star Wars with more extraneous footage.  His basic point is shown in the South Park episode where Spielburg and Lucas seek to redeploy Raiders of the Lost Art.  There the makers of South Park argue from Lucas' viewpoint where, as a creator, he should be allowed to modify his own stuff.  The counterpoint comes from the general public who view their prints where it's become public domain and that they own as much of it as Lucas does.

My viewpoint is that things like this should be tested better rather than allowed to run rampant.  It should be a compromise of  a director's vision and the way a public response is.  As an artist myself, I generally don't care about the public.  My vision is the art in the end.  But something like this is blatantly distasteful and makes it seem moreso Lucas' greed.

Either way, it's a great quote that I'm happy Mr. Smith recognizes.]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 31 May 2004 01:49:25 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/5/31/5a75169d384b29b13d55104c7a4429e0.html</guid>
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<title>Troy</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/6/13/5773172a27bb869fc3a9476e12522290.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Got to see Armpitt's latest self-promotion called Troy.  The variance from Homer's Iliad has been illustrated through various critics revealing of how the actual "story" is supposed to be told.  Ignoring that for a moment, the movie is still an epic mess.  Like Lord of the Rings, the movie attempts to tell an epic tell in a matter of three hours.  However, where Lord of the Rings at least had three movies to develop characters (which translates to 12 hours total if you count the extended versions).  Everything felt extremely rushed once you got passed the first 10 minutes of the movie; the actors seemed to compete for time on screen.  You really wanted to have each one show some development, but none had enough time.

What was shown in the characters wasn't so bad.  Brad Pitt, I guess, was chosen to play Achilles because they needed someone to play an angry, warmongering, jerk.  Perfect person.  Truthfully, the guy looked more like some basketball player trying to hit a slam dunk than some Greek mythological figure.  That seemed to be the only part he really tried to nail (excuse the pun).  

The character that gave some credence to the story was Hector, played by Eric Bana.  Apparently, they needed someone to play Aragorn against Orlando Bloom's Legolas in this movie.  Eric Bana does a good job playing the conflicted, loyal soldier, but in some cases you kinda wish that it was Viggo Mortisen instead. Still, my personal wish was that they kept the fighting scenes a little shorter and the dialogue longer.  The character Bana was attempting to play, I felt, should've been given a few more lines against Achilles in the sense that he would've tried reasoning with him more.  Along with that you needed Sean Bean's Odysseus to have had a few intellectual talks with Hector as they seem to relate better.  

Well, at least this time Sean Bean didn't have to job.  He does another credible job as one of the few characters in the story to have true wit and reason behind him.  Of course, the story really should've been about his character rather than Brad Pitt, but at least Pitt didn't try to outshine everyone here.

I think the biggest point I picked up in the movie was that it provide enough to get the feeling of a greek tragedy (which is what the story is about anyway).  There's an abundance in miscommunication that leads to the various deaths in the story as well as the moral tale of man's greed (Agememnon).  Unfortunately, the epic battle scenes attempt to distract you from the real essence of the story.  Even then those battle scenes don't further what Hollywood has done in recent memory.  It seems that this movie attempted to combat Lord of the Rings and the Matrix Revolutions in terms of scale, but the CG effects are merely a grindstone to the lack of character depth that is needed to drive the scenes.

However, there are some very nice dialogue spots.  I personally like Odysseus' quote, "War is young men dying and old men talking. Ignore the politics."  This statement can be translated into so many situations in our (post-) modern world.  For instance, how managers utilize underpaid grunts to get their project finished while they go off on vacation with a nice paycheck.  Or just the Bush administration in how some shitfuck sends America's young blindly into battle for a war they know nothing about in terms of the real political ramifications (as opposed to the brainwashing effect of "unquestioning patriotism").  That alone demonstrates the timelessness of these Greek tragedies in how we apply them to our mostly unchanged society.

Despite the rushedness and the mess, the plot points that do stick out, are poignant as exemplified by the previous quote.  Another position was Hector's accusation of "Bird Science" against his father's priest ordaining of signs from Apollo that their nation would succeed.  That demonstrates again blindfaith in an irrational decision that helped destroy Troy.  The audience must observe as hapless captives while these fools make their decisions based on false assumptions.  Or seeing how many of the characters in the story are "innocent" and not "truly bad" people.  Yet based on subjectivity, lack of communication, and the side that one is on, they all misunderstand each other leading to the intertwined deaths of each other.  I think from a basic understanding the movie has been able to convey this message quite clearly.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Jun 2004 20:10:56 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/6/13/5773172a27bb869fc3a9476e12522290.html</guid>
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<title>King Arthur</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/6/13/dba8c94ca55af06118fadabf85274321.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Got to see the upcoming previews of Jerry Bruckheimer's latest attempt to capitalize on commercial successes, King Arthur.  It seems like with the success of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (which is more for kids, btw), more movie studios are moving towards the medieval theme.  Just put a sword in some jabronie's hand and see how well it sells.  Since this is a Bruckheimer movie, I have as much faith in this as I would in Bush being responsible for world peace.  

Just the dialogue alone rings of stinky cheese.  Limberger or worse.  There's seems to be a need to take these types of genres and "modernize" it.  While it's true that most people's IQs have remained in the single digits, putting more of this crap out there doesn't really encourage any hope for double digits.  It's like what I said about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: just because you stick a guy in front of a camera with some accent, doesn't make it good acting, nor a classic film.  Troy had some redeeming features by choosing a few good cast members.  However, I don't recognize a single face thus far.  That might be a good thing because hopefully these new people will try to make a statement on their own.  But with a producer like Bruckheimer, I guarantee that this could easily make Keanu Reeves look like Charlton Heston in Ben Hur.

Just from the looks of the production, it's not going to come close to any of the films I've mentioned thus far (Harry Potter shouldn't count because it really isn't in the same league). Troy didn't try hard enough and the other bushleague films that came out with the whole anacronistic look were so terrible they remained at the bargain bins at Best Buy.  Now we have one of the biggest spenders in Hollywood, but it gonna topple Lord of the Rings for a simple reason: Lord of the Rings was made with a lot of heart and caring.  You just can't go around replicating that feeling, which is special.  You know you were watching some special with Lord of the Rings; each piece of the saga was made with care and thought (except my favorite Arwen).  When you look at these hacks coming to replicate the commercial success, you simply get a vulger feeling of greed in your stomach for these Hollywood producers.  I think that's what will make a movie like Lord of the Rings a real classic and these others something that'll fade like a case of the stomach flu.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Jun 2004 20:24:22 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/6/13/dba8c94ca55af06118fadabf85274321.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Spiderman 2</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/7/19/ae402e449ca482a8ee0d0aef3ee14edc.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Got to see this movie over my vacation break.  Better than I expected, but then again I have little faith in Hollywood movies, especially after that atrocious League of Crap movie.  But this one was done well and you could see the director having loads of fun with the character, exploring his personality and exposing him not as an immortal character, but someone with problems like you or me.

When you compare this type of movie to something like Tomb Raider, you realize the real difference in this hero.  He's a comic book hero but he's vulnerable and emotionally charged.  One of the best scenes in the movie has him charge off a building (a la the Matrix) and crashing into a car.  Then he's griping, "My back!  My back!"  While this was a shot at his situation while making the movie, the segue was refreshing (Keannu Reaves did the same, but he has the personality of a piece of plywood).  Toby McGuire really made the character work as being the proverbial zero to hero role.  Compare that to Jim Carrey's the Mask, and the difference is the sense of normality Toby brings, whereas Carrey could not exit from his melodramatic, comic-book onscreen persona.

Also, in comparing this movie to other super hero genre movies, the thing I liked was that the characters were developed a lot better here.  In X-men, there are simply too many people and fans must make the connection to their favorite superhero.  However, they try to establish them too quickly for digestion and some of the primary ones (like Storm and Cyclops) get lost in muddled acting.  Here, there are few enough characters where people aren't competing for screen time and allowed to take advantage of their moments.  Doctor Octavius, who makes his appearance here, does well as a charming scientist who transmorgrifies into the mechanical tentacled villain through the tragedy of his experiment.

And again the dialogue is charming because at times you get a feeling of people being out of character.  For instance, when Spiderman is saving the train and is accused of screwing up by someone next to him, he replies, "Any other ideas genius?"

My favorite scene though has to be the Asian woman plucking away at a violin singing a horrible rendition of the old cartoon theme song "Spiderman."  Moments like those make you realize the director's knowledge of the history of Spiderman and gives a generous chuckle to people who actually can remember those moments.  But it's those moments that help separate it as a movie on its own compared with movies that attempt to (re-) establish the comic books they're bringing to life.

Overall a very satisfying movie that allows me to anticipate and even desire a 3rd one (for once).]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:02:27 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/7/19/ae402e449ca482a8ee0d0aef3ee14edc.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Alien vs Predator</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/8/1/3824ee08891c8233e47782ffe3adab19.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[As if Brockheimer producing King Author wasn't bad enough, another Hollywood hack director has taken on another commercial venture on something living by cult fans' markism towards films: aliens and predator.  After Predator and Aliens, the follow up movies to these two productions were, imo, dismal yet typical Hollywood failures to ride the coattails of prior successes' names without putting any effort or soul, as Linda Hamilton would say for Terminator 3, into these movies.

Without having seen the movie, the first visible aspect is the PG-13 rating.  How can either of these movies warrant a PG-13 rating?  I've never been a fan of excessive violence, gore, or profanity but at least part of the sell of the previous movies was at least one of those aspects.  Essentially, this movie comes under the classification of Lord of the Rings, which excelled on production values and artistic value above all else.  However, this venture seems doomed worse with each passing of these series.

Predator 2 had little to bear except the repetitive reliving of what occurred in the first movie.  They only extended what was done into the city and provided more of the creatures with a hint of the alien in the space ship.  Alien 3 was a visual work, but destroyed all prior setup through the crude Hollywood politics.  And Alien 4 had Wynowa Rider.  Enough said about that.

So how can they build upon the ashes that was left?  It's like the cockroaches remaining after a nuclear war.  Expectations should be set low after the previous three failures.  However, this movie is just like Freddy vs Jason, except that movie series was simply a teenage whack off (literally) where story and character never mattered.  Alien and to a small degree Predator had character.  In the case of the Alien series, they had a very well defined character that probably redefined women's roles in society.

With the current Hollywood environment banking on special effects, name throwing, and just the assumption of bored movie goers, they lack any sense of creativity for character development and story building.  You're lucky at best to get some social commentary that doesn't deviate from some local, obscure setting.  Lord of the Rings might've been the last great epic to be seen but then again it was built by fans and already had ages of analysis to work off of.  Not to mention the story and characters were already built.

So it looks like I might end up boycotting another Aliens movie. ]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 01 Aug 2004 01:16:06 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/8/1/3824ee08891c8233e47782ffe3adab19.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Office Space</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/9/22/561e5e88b2fef9bc8ba09885411899e6.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Just saw this one today.  It's funny to see people in the movie who resemble to a tee people in your own work environment.  mike judge can be annoying at times with his overplaying of some characterizations, but this one was on target.

Most people don't really see a plot in this movie.  That's not the point of the movie.  Like Beavis and Butthead, this story is more non-linear plots that manage to intersect by virtue of logistics.  Namely, that people's lives intersects which influence on occasion the vague remnants of a plot.  But if you think about it, this movie was more about the realism of an office and the lives of people revolving in it.  The drudgery of being in an office and how that environment drives one mad are more key factors than some silly love escapade.  

But that's the artwork of this type of movie.  It shows incidents that are quite real at times.  For instance, the layoff scene with the two Bills discussing with the consultant Lumbergh (sounds strangely Jewish, huh?) and talking about how one guy in particular was "useless" reminds me a lot of what goes on in the offices.  You have two situations there: the useless person who eats in the company's bottom line, and the greedy upper management looking to increase the bottom line through squeezing human resources.  Or the part where they announce they are going to layoff the two best software engineers, hire an intern, and outsource part of their deal to Singapore.  Now when has that not happened?  

On some message boards, there were complaints about the middle portion going into fantasy land.  It's the part where you get a Dilbert-like character who basically tells his company to fuck off.  (Ironically though, he's rewarded with a raise and promotion (reminds me of a quote from my old boss) while his two coworkers who do "real" work get their asses handed to them with a pink slip).  This part differs from Dilbert (although that generally borders on fantasy with talking cats, dogs, etc.) since the protagonist is able to escape from Hell (i.e. the office) and do what most people want to do: nothing and relax.  Instead, he goes and does his fantasy of asking Jennifer Aniston (who plays a waitress at one of his favorite restaurants, strangely resembling TGIF) for a date.  That works out which defies normal expectation because 1) he just admits to losing his job; and 2) she's hot.  But I think it's partly because of guts on his part and the fact that she's really not that much which makes the relationship click at this point.

Still, the climax ends with the office burning down by Milton, who's your stereotypical disgruntled employee who keeps getting shafted at every turn.  While the events are a bit extreme, I've heard and seen more than one person lose it at a job and do something drastic.  Obviously, this part is fantasy too but I'm sure people relish this scene.

Obviously, one of the more interesting and despised characters in this ensemble is Bill Lumbergh, the prototypical pointy haired manager (although his hair obviously isn't pointy here).  This guy is the political warhorse in the office and the guy you'd love to see a crane drop several tons of bricks on.  This guy is simply annoying from his lines of "Okay...." or "Great now..." which reminds me a bit of South Park's Mr Mackey.  Still, we've all scene this type at least once if you worked in an office before.  Doesn't care about anyone except himself and pulls tons of power plays, to the point of being the one who has to know every little detail of your job (for instance, where Peter reveals that he has a meeting with the Bobs and Bill revealing he wasn't aware of it).  He isn't the complete boss from Hell though (Kevin Spacey takes that award in Swimming with Sharks), but he makes his presence felt.  The best scene is the surreal part where Peter has a nightmare of the guy screwing his girlfriend.  You see this guy with his cheesy lines, drinking coffee while boning with Aniston.  Just a well crafted scene!

My only regret was not seeing this earlier.  Although most of my jobs were never this bad, my last job definitely resembled Office Space.  In my case, I had the pointy haired manager breathing down my back with his cheesy lines while being forced to report to a thousand other managers.  Or the part where they want you to come in the office on the weekend, even though you don't get an extra cent.  Or watching your coworkers get canned because some fat fuck is outsourcing his buddies at another company and getting kickbacks.  I can go on.

Funny thing in my case is that I did exactly what Peter did.  Down in the second floor of my past building, there was this little Starbucks shop.  Three lovelies hung around there so I'd often go down just to see them on occasion.  One in particular was cute.  Later, when my shift started in the late portion, I started noticing one was cheerfully talking to the foreigners every morning, I decided to tuck my nerve in and speak to her.  Now, she's going to come with me to LA to study English.  Funny how things work right?

Probably the only thing I don't see myself is Peter being a construction worker in the end.  I'm too small and too much of a nerd.  But I certainly agree with the fact that it's better than being in that stinking hole.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2004 04:37:00 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/9/22/561e5e88b2fef9bc8ba09885411899e6.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/9/26/e9a9cd5b9f99634fec3d33794115ba12.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[With a name like that, your first reaction is to say, "WTF?!?!?!"  Kinda like "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." With titles like that you first think they reek of stupidity and Hollywood going lower than they already have.  Intrigued, I decided to check this out, especially considering part of the story had the name "Kumar" in it (because it's not a typical Anglo-Saxon name).  I was expecting something silly, but not to the level this presented....and it was a pleasant silly for once.

A friend of mine remarked that this might be the new Cheech and Chong, with themes of sex, drugs, music, and bad taste in humor along with two ethnic types being thrown in absurd adventures.  He isn't far from the mark when you get to see this movie.  Unlike the Cheech and Chong series though which simply entered into the area of the absurd (and generally bad but funny taste), this show aims to demonstrate non-whites in a more positive light through humor.  That is what distinguishes this flick from any other teen flick about smoking pot, etc.

Smoking some hash one night, Harold, a Korean American investment banker (junior), tags along with Kumar,  an Indian American pre-med student, to find the perfect meal: White Castle Burgers.  The story quickly breaks down from any realistic mode and enters into a pseudo-fantasy realm a la Wayne's World, where the absurd become reality (although you have to question where the reality is not just a construction of lit greenery from the two's imaginations).  Besides White Castle though, their intention focuses on two other things: getting laid and smoking a lot of pot.  Part of the movie involves them attempting to locate weed, going from the Princeton campus to the jail cells.  I think by having the drug motif the producers excuse themselves somewhat from reality and diving into fantasy of how to cast a drugy's mind.  But as with any comedy movie with a pot element, it's all good.  One of the best scenes in the movie involves Kumar in a dream state, falling in love with a bag of pot.  There's a classic line where Kumar, in a wife beater outfit, receives a coffee from his newly wed pot bag, spits it out and tells the bag, "Bitch!  Learn to make coffee!"  

Parts of the movie just degenerates into utter stupidity, low brow humor or slows down.  For instance, the portion of the pair getting rescued by Freakshow who tells them they can bang his wife has no rhythm and just lags.  Same with the part where they encounter the Burger Shack employee.  They try to run with jokes in those scenes but they last too long to make any sincere impact.  The low brow humor of the toilet (literally speaking) is a cheap tactic for the audience to become acquainted with the characters and more "involved" with the movie; this occurs during the diarhea twins holding a game of "Battleshit."  Although admittedly this is a raunchy funny scene, it really adds nothing to the characters nor the plot (outside of Kumar dropping another bag of pot in the toilet from shock).  There's enough other movies that employ these devices making it cliche (and some which utilize these devices to make a point like South Park).

Where this movie does make its mark is when issues of ethnicity and stereotyped (by very real) situations that many of us Asian Americans probably at one time or another faced.  For instance, the Extreme Team posers who beat up on the Indian mini-mart store owner where Kumar attempts to defend him and flinches typifies Asian Americans as being cowards in a fight.  However, revenge is definitely sweet when Harold steals the posers' truck and later implicates them by leaving behind a huge bag of pot for a police officer to crack down on.  The situation is a win of brains over brawns which I believe many Asian Americans who work hard believe in.

And though the movie does raise those issues, it's not afraid to poke back at our own stereotypes as Asians.  For instance, the character of Cindy Kim, whom Harold does not like at all, reminds us of how many of us nerdy guys end up getting some equally geeky Asian girl rather than our dream date.  Or where Harold is forced to endure the Korean Association where a bunch of Princeton (presumably) Korean geek guys are bugging him about his job as an investment banker.  However, those images of the nerdy Asian are turned around and defied or are shown as positive qualities in the film.  For instance, the geeky association throws a killer party which has what both guys want: pot.  Later both regret not going and even attempt to blame each other for their lack of foresight.  Another instance is where Kumar ends up saving a man's life in the hospital (obviously this wouldn't happen since he was a pre-med student, but hey give him a break).

One particular thing I didn't like about the presentation of the movie was the explicit dialog.  Not the four letter poetry recited at every other turn, nor the content.  But the way it was presented, meaning more "tell don't show."  Comparing this movie to Office Space, Mike Judge does a better job in making his points without voceferously announcing it to the public and allow people to infer or deduce what his points are.  For example, the traffic jam scene at the beginning where Peter is slowed down to a crawl is emphasized through the use of an old man on a walker moving faster than the people in his traffic lane.  On the other hand, Harold and Kumar would present a scene which would be doubly emphasized through dialog.  A good example is where Harold spots Goldstein and the other jewish guy and admits outloud, "I want that...The feeling a man gets when he gets exactly what he desires."  That is a tragic screen error as it undermines the confidence in the actor's ability to convey such emotions with facial expressions and removes the audience's ability to reach the same conclusion.  The result is a weaker state of revelation.  A better scene where this doesn't occur is the moment where both receive their goal and are blissfully consuming their meals; one part shows both lamenting which kinda is meant to be humorous because it demonstrates the toil of their adventure.  Yet the simplicity of that moment and the placement is far more effective than the previously mentioned part.

Ultimately, the movie attempts to provide both guys with their self-despised qualities of being stereotypically Asian, and then move beyond that to show the positives of that ethnicity as well as demonstrating both guys as just being the guys next door wanting to have a good time.  And that's what the movie is: having a good time.

I hear that a new one will be coming out.  I personally hope to see more of these series as they can go further in developing these characters on adventures of ridiculousness, drugs, sex and ethnic identities.  There's a good basis for them to build these two from.  More importantly they have enough unique qualities to improve the basis.  And there's a few good supporting characters they can utilize like Goldstein, Cindy Kim, Rosenberg, Kenneth Park, and even the Extreme Posers.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 26 Sep 2004 06:41:58 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2004/9/26/e9a9cd5b9f99634fec3d33794115ba12.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Blade Trinity/Elektra</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/1/23/60b2145c62ae68d7fdb23933264ef6d1.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I'm starting to believe that Hollywood and/or it's film "writers" (a term that I loosely use) has a templating system for their scripts.  The last two films I saw in the theatre were remarkably the same: Blade Trinity and Elektra.  If they were using a template, you could call it lame because neither made an attempt to do ANYTHING.  Blade Trinity had explosions and sword fighting while Elektra had lots of sword fighting.  Both had generic levels of angst and both kinda made similar trips to special effects (compare how the vampires died to the way the ninjas dissipated).  

The sad thing is that you could tell people weren't trying, just like I'm not trying in writing about this.  But that's the thing about Hollywood these days: it's empty and unmotivated.  I recently got myself Netflix and have been enjoying films that don't rely on CG, explosions and just bignames.  Now these two were based on comic books, but I don't see why people are forced to buy into explosions and deaths occurring at precisely predictable moments (except for that incident where they try to give you a cheap thrill for a split second).  They need to explore the characters more and depart from what's inside the comic book.  Outside of Spiderman and X-Men, I've regretted each comic book movie that has come out thus far.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 23 Jan 2005 20:08:58 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/1/23/60b2145c62ae68d7fdb23933264ef6d1.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>John Q</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/1/31/7b3e827e98866529a932f05c74677ea8.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Had a chance to see this movie.  I was skeptical that it would fall into some action drama, but it was sensible to avoid that pitfall.  Actually, I found the movie to be exceptionally cathartic, albeit wishful in thinking.  

The story is about Denzel Washington, playing John Q, a blue collar factory worker who's son collapses on the field of a baseball game.  Up until that point, John was facing economic problems rising during that period (which was around the election time or post election period).  Many jobs were being shipped to Mexico and plants were being closed in the states as lines of employees would fight for a single, low pay position.  In the midst of all that, John finds out his insurance doesn't cover an open heart transplant operation, leading John to do whatever it takes to raise enough funds.  Despite that, the bureaucracy of the hospital system pushes his back against the wall where he explodes and takes the hospital hostage.

The show contains a lot of middle class, blue collar (and even white collar) anger that can be found post-Clinton period.  Job losses, poor healthcare, bureaucratic unfriendly systems.  Although the main issue seems to be centered around the nation's problematic healthcare system, the bigger issue is a socio-political one.  It goes back to my saying that one of the nation's greatest enemies is the bureaucracy that's internally destroying the country.  You had a sense of Kafka's bureaucracy with John (and others) attempting to cipher through millions of forms, only to find out that he misfiled something.  The constant shuffling of his situation which prevents the most common sense thing from occurring, which is getting his son treatment, is ignored as the system turns its ugly head on him.

What's great about the story is that despite being angry, it really doesn't attempt to villainize individuals.  In fact, it brings to light their own dilemma which adds dimensions to their character.  We feel angry towards them only because there isn't anyone else we can get proper answers from.  Hence, why John assaults the doctor (who in reality is probably a good person as he does save lives).  It's obviously the wrong answer from an ethical viewpoint, but John is not an immoral person.  Rather he represents Everyman in becoming the embodiment of what we want to and ought to do.  For instance, John does not inhumanely deny the patients their rights to medical care, but actually speeds up the process of the waiting line.  His connection with the others in the WR lead to their support of his actions (such as the black guy whose fingers are injured to even sacrifice himself for a split second for John).

The movie also tries to problematize the cops in a role that polarizes them against John but at the same time underscore their plight in the hostage situation.  For the chief officer involved, he's examining this from an exceptionally selfish viewpoint of a PR disaster, especially as the crowd begins to favor John.  As that occurs, we begin seeing Frank Grimes, a hardboiled officer, even sympathizing with John's case (towards the end where the injured man briefly shows his face and Grimes gives a slight chuckle).  This shift demonstrates that the author does not intend to assault the police for doing their job.

Instead, the real assault is against this bureaucratic system.  The legal loopholes mentioned in detail by the young doctor (while debatable) shows that middle men are making money off what ought to be a free system.  The entire thing struck home for me as my father, who is in a nursing home now, although receiving care, doesn't receive the benefit of a proper, affordable help system from the government.  When you look at other first world nations and compare ours in terms of healthcare, we're extraordinarily far behind.

The issue of healthcare is an extremely sensitive one because money is heavily involved.  Should it be free payed by our tax dollars?  If it exists and we need a better system should we raise taxes?  The movie brings to light these issues towards the end with the various talk shows discussing the issue.

But again the real problem is the giant farce of a system in play.  I think it's hard for other countries to relate to this problem because it's quite US-centric.  Still it's great seeing a movie highlight a real social issue and attempt to address it.

The thing I have to applaud is Denzel Washington.  He has a blue collar type of sensibility that you can get behind.  His words are that of a simple man, confused by a system that has confounded help with money.  You really want to root for him and wish that others had enough guts to stand up and put a gun to some doctor or bureaucrat's head to order them to provide us with our basic needs.

Healthcare ought to be something provided by the government to the citizens of the nation, especially in a nation like the US.  As citizens, we are what build this nation.  Without basic support from what our tax dollar pays, we can't function properly.  Our government has constantly failed to improve our lives, instead focusing on individual politicians' behind-the-scenes funded schemes to help their special interest rather than the interest of the nation.  ]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 31 Jan 2005 10:30:05 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/1/31/7b3e827e98866529a932f05c74677ea8.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Great Blasphemous Movie/TV Idea</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/2/1/3c5206f1dad06127c4d0cd9698daa289.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Let's say that we suddenly had a method to resurrect people and that one day we resurrected Jesus somehow.  As a formal apology by the world to Jesus, he is given the right to do anything.  For a dead person, he's pretty fucking pissed.  So in redemption he takes a new name: Mr. Asshole.  Mr. Asshole does what the fuck he wants and just plain kicks ass.  Everyone is a sinner so it's Mr. Asshole's job to set the world straight.  God is definitely a vengeful one.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2005 10:32:31 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/2/1/3c5206f1dad06127c4d0cd9698daa289.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Son of the Mask</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/2/19/a46a48285ec6b600079938c861395dbb.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[God why?  the preview looked quite horrid.  it's pretty bad when they try to take a semi-franchise movie and make a sequel.  this one appears far worse since jim carrey and cameron diaz are nowhere in sight.  glad i'm not the only one shitting on crap like this.

i'm waiting for the day when the studios DON'T produce a sequel based on the revenue from the first movie.  if i ever come out with my own movie, i'll make sure that no one except myself can ever produce a sequel.  and if i can't write a sequel that tops it, it won't get produced.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 19 Feb 2005 00:46:46 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/2/19/a46a48285ec6b600079938c861395dbb.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>I'm John Constantine</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/3/14/ae9bac65d3156ba2df46609915606e1d.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Hollywood definitely has some goddamn template for their "scripts" or "writing."  I fail to see how this is any different from that other comic book shit called Blade.  You could interchange the actors and villains, but it's all the same.  None of the material is mentally challenging (except challenging the urge NOT to go postal while working in Hollywood), although the "writers" are most definitely mentally challenged.

However, there is one bright side: I no longer absolutely hate Keannu Reeves.  I suddenly have realized that he's good at two things: 1) the obvious thing; 2) a loud mouth, smart ass punk.  Honestly, I blame his lassitude on the roles he receives: simply big budget, low brain profiled movies.  But the guy can and does deliver good one liners.  People thought Ahnold was good at that, but he barely could mumble through them.  Keannu is genuinely funny because he's so dead pan.  I swear they should have made him Cyclops in X-Men, rather than that generic guy.

The whole explosion of comic book-to-movie thing has been taken too far.  So far only X-Men and Spiderman have come close to producing anything watchable.  But again it's in the directors and writers producing these things that make a difference.  Hollywood's gravest fault is relying on formulas, which is like using Cliff Notes to write an essay.  People have gotten wise to it and there's just no sustainability to these "blockbusters" except in their short, cheap spurts in which people are driven to watch these things as a social medium.

But as far as real content goes, Hollywood fuck you!]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:04:17 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/3/14/ae9bac65d3156ba2df46609915606e1d.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Stealth</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/3/14/9d168c831a370f5cce9b63806d914ead.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[This movie is entitled this way as a subtle jab at the fact that they "stealthily" have stolen the premise and LOOK from Macross Plus.  My god how Hollywood cannot be sued by Japan for ACTUALLY STEALING is beyond me.  It's so laughable that the MPAA makes such a big fuss about information piracy, but these is beyond blatant.  This is not only stealing, but turning a REALLY GOOD movie with a great story, and then shitting on it.

If they were going to steal Macross Plus, why not just make it a live action film?  It's a GREAT anime and has a very good story to the back with a challenging premise behind it.  Instead, we have the prototyped terminator AI killer, dumbed down for Hollywood's, ahem, standards.  


This is so unbelievably disgusting and is definitely an all time low for Hollywood.  Macross Plus happens to be a personal favorite of mine, one of the few things in life that actually helped inspire me to write some screenplays.  And for these bozos, no talent, ass clowns to do a Michael Bolton is downright sickening.  

It's ironic how Americans previously would cry out on how the Japanese would copy their stuff and then repackage it.  Why should it just be the Japanese?  Here's an instance where the Japanese are doing it better and that the Americans are making things worse.  Americans are so out of ideas that they're looking and stealing from abroad now.  

Truthfully, no one really is "stealing" things.  But the sad part is that you'd have to wonder HOW MUCH credit will be given to Macross Plus and the makers during this whole thing.  How aware will the American and international public be of the profound influence of anime on the arts will come out of this?  

This is what really bugs me about copyright infringement.  The real idea behind intellectual property ought to be giving credit where credit is due.  Not about how much money a person is theoretically entitled to.  That's what capitalism has boiled down to.  The real arts like music, movies, etc. are being raped by producers who have no creativity and don't truly give credit properly.

Fuck you again hollywood.  Maybe one of those AI fighters will do us a favor and turn on you guys in determining that you are a bunch of genetically inferior writers.]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:17:10 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/3/14/9d168c831a370f5cce9b63806d914ead.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Are Trey and Matt reading this?</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/3/23/b55d1c498bfac4164e20ea73f2e41d51.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Call me a bit egotistical, but i was watching South Park the other night and thought, "Damn!  It sounds like all my complaints on my blog."  Then again I don't see how that type of program can keep going without renewed source of inspiration from some place.  Hey, I'm not a college kid hippy, if you're reading this :)]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2005 09:35:10 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/3/23/b55d1c498bfac4164e20ea73f2e41d51.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>Theory on Violence and Movies</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/4/11/75a979f322fa949a5c6a42df14c7d667.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Why is it that in America vulgar language and sex are taboo in movies yet violence is highly tolerated?  Why is it that we're more accepting of guns than we are of prostitution?  My theory is that the US suffers from the military industry complex.

If you watch TV these days, images have been getting more explicit with regards to violence.  The language level though is as sensitive as ever with the fines being sent through the FCC for incidents like the Janet Jackson situation.  Still I've noticed the increase in cop shows like CSI and all the variants of that.  To me though the presentation of violent acts through the media represents the validation of the military industrial complex present in America.  We basically attempt to glorify the police, military and guns in order to maintain those institutions.

It would be interesting to see what relation, for instance, the NRA has with the media, especially TV and movie studios in this regard.  Also, it's interesting to examine the relationship between our ratings system (e.g. PG, PG-13, etc.) and this notion.  PG movies can be quite violent in themselves, yet we're saying that kids from 13 are allowed to view them.  People are more concerned about the language used than the violence.  In that sense, I'd like to propose that having that glorification of violence leads our kids to want to become violent, essentially moving towards occupations that relate to violence.  For instance, the military or the police.

I read an article by a Thomas Keller that discussed this issue with regards to Top Gun.  It was interesting because after seeing that movie (and watching shows like Robotech in my elementary school days) I had wanted to join the navy.  There was something sexy and fulfilling about riding in an F-14 at the time (and still is but in a different way :p).  Still I see movies (and producers like Brockheimer) as being staunch supporters for this mentality.  Stupifying the content and reducing things to simply visual and audio sensories in the media disallows core issues to be criticized.  Like, why do we need a gun in the first place?  Instead, the situation becomes, well the explosion was eye candy.  So in this sense, there seems to be a kind of validation for why the content of movies has gone down in Hollywood (outside of the fact of the writers union issues).  Still why haven't people intervened?  The voice of the internet generally has denounced those movies, but most people online are more educated in general.  However, none of the newer movies are an attempt to appeal to an erudite audience.  They are there to appeal to the younger generation; it's sort of Orwellian, where you remove the language to generate uncritical content and create a 2 minute hate orgy.  The young won't understand.  However, a huge part of their socialization and education are through the media.]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 11 Apr 2005 14:45:26 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/4/11/75a979f322fa949a5c6a42df14c7d667.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Brazil</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/4/26/98698ac98f2eac1d66637ac60dc0c754.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Crazy ass movie.  It's like 1984, Thomas Pynchon, and Kafka merged into one.  But then what else can you say about the always inspiring Terry Gilliam?  His movies are so out there but they constantly attempt to challenge social structure.  Here, we have the notion of a futuristic, ultra bureaucratic society where people are lost and threatened by paperwork.  The workers at the firm for the protagonist have no names but are serialized encodings for their departments.  The main character's life is unambitious but he changes that when a mishap in an account causes him to investigate a scene and he meets and obsesses over a woman that he envisions from his dreams.

The story's ending ends up on a sadder yet more hopeful note than 1984.  The hero, strapped to a chair with his hands pierced as symbolizing his position as a Christ-like figure, gazes into his own world where he's locked away and distant.  Yet his dreams cannot manifest as reality succumbs him to his final imprisonment.  

It's interesting to see Gilliam's vision of the future here carried out as a society which is embroiled in paperwork.  Citigroup was like that where one's punishment is not getting fired, but rather filling out a million forms just to bypass several thousand other forms. The people in this world are apathetic to the dispositions of the less fortunate, instead immersed in their own selfish indulgence.  For instance we see his mother and mother's friend in the gluttony of wealth, rather than spending time for the social good, conversing about trite issues that only define the meaning of their existence.

The movie makes me bring up yet another god foresaken sexual harassment course i had to endear today.  I coined the idea of the "semantic law."  That is, how we have converted and manipulated semantics over common sense in declaring judgment on our society.  I found the exercise to be one of patience because anything they showed you there was clearly a waste of time (and something I poignantly mentioned in the review section).  I find it depressing that our society has allowed these technocrats to hold positions for incriminating people.  Despite all the evidence of harassment this or that in the program, I found the program to be disturbingly insulting to my own senses.  It was clearly geared to favor certain people such as mentioning how religious iconography in the private space would be okay as opposed to porn.  My belief has always been to mind your fucking business.  I never ask people to visit my spot and I don't visit their's unless invited.  

The other insult was how they said that a "reasonable" person could distinguish between good/bad idioms in these scenarios.  These days "reasonable" lacks resonance because reason has been replaced by semantics.  A person could argue shit out of their asshole and declare their feces land.  But common sense has no place in the semantic world, especially lawyers, those that pervert the English language, have ruled with their scheming means.

But imagine how much better we'd feel without these lawyers and bureaucrats?  We all want to be like Sam from Brazil with our magic sword and slaying the evil oppressor and bringing freedom to the world.  But in the end we're simply consumed by paperwork and disappear without a trace like Robert Deniro.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2005 01:20:04 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/4/26/98698ac98f2eac1d66637ac60dc0c754.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Pattern Recognition for 2006</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/5/8/bf859056fca4396393441ff4fb3b1a8e.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[Yup that Pattern Recognition.  No cast announced yet.  Should be interesting to see the interpretation of Gibson here.  Honestly, I think Gibson should move permanently into script writing.  His style fits far better and visually in that field.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 08 May 2005 01:27:45 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/5/8/bf859056fca4396393441ff4fb3b1a8e.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>who wants to touch me?  i said who wants to touch me?!?!?!</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/5/20/4fe7619ed2425f66cb14e0eca4530206.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[saw the new Star Wars episode 3 today at the Archlight.  oooooooh.  how was it you ask of course?  as a long time star wars fan and a lover of good movies, i'm leaning towards the middle.  on the one hand, it's hard to deny the fact that George Lucas can't write a story and more importantly DIALOGUE worth his life.  on the other hand, it's hard not to like a film like this because it's part of the reason why I'm probably even typing this at this point (meaning being a reviewer?  no, just the idea of writing)

so let's get my typical gripes out of the way first.  okay the dialogue blew.   it was terribly cheesy and generic, something that would make Harry Potter seem like an act of Shakespeare.  fine.  but most of the time you hungered for more expository.  in fact, you required it since this was an epic.  this is where a Peter Jackson holds a clear advantage since he had an establish piece of text to retrieve his dialogue that people love.  this, however, wasn't as excusable.  let's take some examples.

the end part with Bail Organa suddenly declaring, "yeah my wife and i were thinking of adopting a baby..." WTF?!!?!?!  that suddenly makes Organa seem impotent, huh?  naturally, that coincides with how Princess Leia comes into Organa's possession, but that little line could've been done so much better for what it was worth.

next the whole romance issue.  the whole love affair from day one seemed like a pizza faced pair of teens' angst from puberty.  this is a love story about loss.  i didn't feel like people lost anything from this (except Lucas' mind).  the ending part with Padame's sudden remonstration of Anakin "You're not the person I knew!" made a collective groan in the audience louder than a hundred oysters crying out in the universe at once.

then Anakin's "You're either with me or against me" line probably made more people hurl than the entire love dialogue in the show put together.  yes, we know that part of the movie is a parody of the American government.  however, such a line makes things so painfully obvious that it certainly bespeaks an agenda.  Contrast LOTR where the book was written a while back, yet can apply the same principles to our current government.  Heck i found it hillarious when i found a bumper sticker that said, "Frodo failed; Bush has the ring!"  never state the obvious.  Both Legolas and Lucas fail here.

Next let's talk about the visual groan factors.  Jar Jar was there, yes (and unfortunately NOT slaughtered mercilessly to the billions of imploring Star Wars fans), but that's not the point.  I'm talking the "cutesy" parts with androids making little noises resembling more of a chihuahua whimpering.  These comedy moments were absolutely redundant and a waste of budget.  This is a grim movie.  We're going to see Anakin do his impression of the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four! We want to feel angst not this uplifted mood swing.  Reminds me a bit of the Venoms movies where you had the comedic introduction of the Venoms gang to get you in the mood, then suddenly the entire group dying at the end.  The difference between the two though is purely structural: the comedy routines of the Venoms was used to create a bond with the audience in making the characters more likeable.  Here, the "adorable" androids simply generate resentment among fans.

Next General Grievous.  He's supposed to be like Darth Maul, a total badass.  But he isn't.  He's a TB infected cyborg of sorts.  And he's completely useless.  Complete time filler just like the entire podrace scene.  Why devote the energy to a new villain?  Yeah, he's like the Bin Ladens and Saddam Hussein's in that he's an asshole that irritates the hell out of you, but for no good reason.  And then you end up hating him because you're told to.  In my case, I'm completely apathetic.  He's simple Jedi fodder.  You already had several top villains with Christopher Lee reprising his role as Count Dooku, the Emperor and of course Anakin Skywalker.  There needed to be more interaction with those three characters rather than a new merchandising piece.  I mean, this is fucking Christopher Lee who got slaughtered in a few mere minutes.  He went head-to-head against Yoda and survived!  Too much potential lost for a CG character....

the whole Padme dying because she loses the will to live issue.  eh?????  i saw the South Park where Kyle does something similar as soon as Cartman wins a million bucks and buys up his own theme park.  her dying slowly figuratively and literally felt like Kyle dying because of a hemroid on his ass.  i'm sorry but there wasn't enough to convince me that Padme should die from a brokenheart.  at this point i was more ready to accept her giving up because of a giant zit on her ass.

padme's sudden lack of power.  at one point she's queen.  now she doesn't even have a voice except to whine and cry for no good reason.  the whole bitching scene of her while Palpatine assumes power over the galaxy sucked.  made her seem even weaker, compared with the same woman who challenged the entire Republic in episode 1.  why didn't she suddenly get up and confront the Palpatine?  that scene begged for her to do *SOMETHING*.  

okay, i think that's the majority of my bitching.  now for the good stuff.

scenery.  lucas has always done an excellent job for putting the fantastic, in the most literal sense, on the big screen.  there's no exception here with some high quality art devoted to the alien worlds of Star Wars.  The war scenes are especially cool, but that comes along with the territory.

The opening fight scene kicked ass.  Scenes like that are what made people like myself Star Wars fans.  of course, this time around Lucas had the budget the graphics to explicitly show what he once did through camera tricks from his earlier films.  but here fans eagerly wanted to see those moments.

Also, the wookie scene with the entire wookie populace going up in arms with the clone troopers totally brought up an enthusiastic cheer from my group.  wookies kick ass!  just for fun though they should've showed Chewbacca's family to see if people paid attention to the infamous Christas Special ;)

Yoda.  How can you not like this pop-culture icon?  they totally made him look bad ass here.  we got a taste of why he was called Jedi Master from episode 2.  now we got an entire serving!  i enjoyed how he challenges Palpatine directly and puts the old geezer over like Liger putting the Great Sasuke over in the Super J-Cup.  that was an epic battle we wanted to see.  

And to see Palpatine not being this frail old man, but a vicious SOB.  sure we knew he could he could lightning bolt a Jedi to the moon but his vigor here was a lot better.  he made Samuel L Jackson his personal bitch, gangsta style.  but forget those powers.  his real power was in his resonance.  i'm with the majority in how his character was the best of the group in its definition.  classic archtype of the manipulator.  some say that Anakin's turn was too quick, but one could argue that Palpatine, in understanding the ways of the Jedi, could be using Sith Mindtricks to be handling Anakin (although he never waves his hand ).  Even the dreams in Anakin's head could be said to be implantations by the emperor himself to aggrandize the insecurity Anakin has over his fate.

finally we have the climatic battle that many people for over three decades have been waiting to witness.  the infamous toss Darth into the lava scene.  this is  a hard one to discuss because from a technical perspective, this is a great fight scene.  probably the best lightsaber fight scene next to Yoda vs Count Dooku.  however, i felt that an incredible amount of dialogue should've been embedded in the scene.  instead, it felt like a Venoms movie in that both sides, particularly Anakin, lacked any vindication in his moves.  you could feel Anakin's anger in his aggressiveness, but you wanted to see him vocally becoming arrogant and belittling Obi-Wan.  The portions between Luke-Vader and Obi-Vader in 4-6 had decent dialogue that setup the motivations for their actions well, without delving into the technical elaborations of the lightsaber duel.  like Luke going after Vader when Vader declares he'd attempt to go after Leia, that's a simple yet effective tool.  Here the setup was "you're either with me or against me" along with Padme being unconscious.  In Empire, Vader kept goading Luke which caused his ire to rise, ultimately leading to a fateful error that cost Luke his hand.  Here there's no goading.  

Okay, enough ranting here.  I'll follow up with a "how would I have fixed things?" type of post.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2005 23:58:40 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/5/20/4fe7619ed2425f66cb14e0eca4530206.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>How to make Star Wars better?</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/5/21/0ab9f2e1081124ea18b8986d2a5e7212.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[my first rant alluded to me rewriting Star Wars.  I'm certain everyone has their fantasies of how the last part should've played out, and I'm no different.  So let's dive right into it!

First, you had to tie in the 2 episode somehow.  Obviously, Count Dooku would be included.  But like Return of the King, here poor Christopher Lee got the short end of the stick (or Lightsaber).  Poor guy lost BOTH hands among other things to a punk Anakin Skywalker.  At that point he seemed just like an old man that had a few choice dialogue pieces delivered by a very resonant Lee.  But besides bearing a red lightsaber, why should we hate this guy?  What's his motives?  We find out that he's another apprentice under Darth Sidious.  But how did that come to be?  When you get a guy like Lee in a movie, you need to utilize him.  Him playing alongside the future Emperor would've made a mighty duo to slowly coerce Anakin towards the dark side.  Yet he died just like that.  His presence should've been stretched to demonstrate his power, why he was made a clear number two to Sidious.  I would've played him as the Emperor's chief pawn right up until the 2/3rds of the movie where Anakin could've taken over.  You could've even linked him to the fate of Padme where Anakin's blade led to his descent into evil because of his fear for Padme through Dooku.

More interaction between Obi-Wan and Anakin.  We needed to see more of their chemistry together to demonstrate why Obi-Wan called Anakin his brother.  General consensus probably pegged Obi-Wan engaging in an extramarital affair with Padme to throw Anakin over the edge.  Instead, Anakin turns out to be a hard headed kid that won't listen.  In a perverse way, it justifies why that Jake Lloyd was picked in the first place (since he was a little punk ass), but the dynamics of their relationship needed a lot more development.  Anakin betraying Obi-Wan in the end needed something to throw him over the edge, like the Emperor himself tricking Anakin into believing Obi-Wan had an affair with Padme.  That point works off of how Vader tricks Luke into fighting him at the end of ROTJ.  Unlike Luke though, Vader fails to stem his passion, fears and desires,.  During that time you could play a parallel scene with the Emperor completely goading young Anakin much in the same way that he attempted to play Luke against Vader.  You need a solid reason for Anakin to betray someone bequething the name of brother unto him.  What more powerful reason to exploit besides the very person you're best friends with screwing your lover?

The senate/congressional meeting.  This begged Padme stepping in for an Academy Award.  We needed her to play her the only voice of reason, the only mediator in the movie in a game of politics against Palpatine.  Of course, they wanted to parody Bush's own declaring of an absolute executive power through the unity of the Neo-Conservative groups to his cause.  However, we wanted to see someone, anyone, challenge him on the political level to demonstrate that democracy needs a voice to defend itself when a tyrant assumes control.  Here, Padme could've used that moment to negate Palpatine's (almost typed Bush) rule by challenging him and the rest of the order on how they could allow a single person to assume this level of power.  Other members of the Republic could show their strong support of Palpatine with the brainwashed moniker of being devoted to ideals of peace and that how Separatists like Count Dooku required extirpation for the galaxy to assume law and order.  She could refute them in citing how their founding constitution wasn't made for ideals of absolute power, but the protection of the people through democracy and freedom of choice.  The move to eliminate the Separatists into oblivion was redundant as most of their power would be removed by simple banishment.  At which point Palpatine works his Sith Mindtricks to contest that only a singular, unified galaxy could bring peace since everyone would consent.  That would draw the rest of the order's agreement in an ironic mode since 100% consent shows monotony in thinking, rather than expression for ideals (which is what the Neo-Conservatives wish to promote in their Christian, conservative, narrow ways).

The final scene between Anakin and Obi-Wan requires a huge overhaul.  First, I would've made more love-hate points between the two where Obi-Wan is clearly trying to save Anakin from certain self-destruction.  It is Anakin's youth and impetuous demeanor that are core characteristics that move him towards the Dark Side.  Obi-Wan still as a mentor attempts to instruct Anakin that those things lead towards a darker path during the path, which only increases his anger since he cannot distinguish Obi-Wan's teachings from goadings (where the Emperor's presence should be required).  that of course leads to Obi-Wan cutting Anakin's legs from under him as he slides down the path.  Or better yet, Obi-Wan attempts to save Anakin through dismembering him again, taking away Anakin's robotic sword arm again, leaving them to fight with just the Force and little else.  I see Padme and the Emperor entering between the two to conflict Anakin into making the ultimate mistake.  I would've had Obi-Wan trying to save Anakin from entering the lava with the Emperor getting Padme and/or Obi-Wan admit their adulterous affair, causing Anakin to flip out and Obi-Wan letting him go into the lava.  

Alternatively (or additionally), I see Anakin's move towards the Dark Side from his fears and moving to the mercy of the emperor to save his wife.  They did that with him but it was weak.  You needed more of that where the Emperor shows empathy towards him and preying on those vulnerabilities by revealing the future.  I mean, what's so special about Padme?  Here's an ass kicking Jedi.  Why not bone some other fine chick in the galaxy?  The emperor was the one needing to make and remind Anakin of the connection between Padme and his mother.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 21 May 2005 01:18:16 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/5/21/0ab9f2e1081124ea18b8986d2a5e7212.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Commitment To Movies</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/6/1/46ced67e4a972ea53dea36371259c7f6.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[After seeing Star Wars 3, I think that I never want to see another film again.  Seriously.  That was it.  I've seen all the movies I've ever wanted to view in a lifetime.  The rest suck so badly these days that I'd prefer sticking a drill up my ass than wasting my time with them. I'm going to give up Netflix too.  There's a few shows I'd like to see on rental, but as far as the theatre is concerned, I'll only go if I get a girlfriend or unless people invite me for free.

Other than that, I think my own stuff is far better than the crap they produce in the studios these days.  ]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:57:42 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/6/1/46ced67e4a972ea53dea36371259c7f6.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Get Shorty vs Fear and Loathing in Vegas</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/6/7/4b51eceef61688efc86f4129318c3028.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I finally discovered one aspect of why I absolutely despise Hollywood movies: it's all a fucking insider joke.  Watching Get Shorty reminded me quickly of everything wrong in Hollywood.  This is an attempt to get an all star ensemble and witless dialogue thrown together like a garbage salad and put it on screen.  It's like watching a chatroom or blog for celebrities who have a need to bitch about the way they intially paid their dues.  Is this a movie for people out there or a movie just for celebrities to crack up while sitting around in their thousand dollar formal attire at a masturbatory awards ceremony?

Besides that, all I saw were old actors and actresses on the last leg of their careers.  People will go see them for name recognition, but these people have absolutely no soul left.  You could feel the banal motion that these people made as they passed through the script like strolling through a crowded mall during Christmas.  The movie allowed them to pat each other on the back and blow their nose on their hated producers, directors, and other nemesis.  But there wasn't any substance for the average Joe to care about unless you are a fan with no prescience nor conscience outside of what the media trap sells you.

Compare that to a more artful and introspective Fear and Loathing in Vegas.  Although Johnny Depp had impressed me since his performance in Pirates of the Carribean, he once again managed to stun me with the drug induced persona here.  Starting off with the voice he uses as the narrator, he instantly reminds you of those older movies in the 50's of guys on the radio broadcasting their thoughts.  Right there, you instantly incorporate the mood which Terry Gilian is expert in producing.

Depp stumbles through hallucinations from intense drug usage in a manner that paralleled the writings of Thompson (whereas people in Get Shorty simply stumbled through the script).  You feel with the camera angles and Depp's swooning the sense of being induced by whatever Depp was absorbing in the movie.  

The movie itself was introspective in how a person could push themselves to the limits of the act of sin.  This was part of the attempt to personify Vegas as the ultimate ground which would be denounced by the church.  The movie made no sense from a narrative perspective, but it was the mood generated that captivated me.  The point wasn't the typical hollywood crappy linear storyline, but a disembodied one that reaches the extremes of our conscious.  It wasn't masturbatory either in just being a drug trip, but perhaps a question of our restraints in the society and using drugs to escape all sense of conformity and gain new vision.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jun 2005 01:20:54 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/6/7/4b51eceef61688efc86f4129318c3028.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>You know you hit rock bottom when...</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/7/12/45e6454370e8ce9e8f99615a1ff4a22c.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[you have your own reality show.  I really need a TV section to put this blog in but i hate TV so badly that I refuse to start a TV section.  anyway, i'm hoping that the people who star in these reality shows make less than me.  come on, it doesn't take any talent nor brainpower to show your ugly mug on camera.  honestly, these people who decide that their reality show is worth anything should offer the public money to watch it because they are so debasing, so lacking of creativity, ingenuity, and anything of social worth that they actually cripple society by their mere presence.

go aheady hollywood.  i hope the whole damn TV goes towards reality TV because people eventually will be crying out for someone like me to write something decent with social value back into TV.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:23:46 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/7/12/45e6454370e8ce9e8f99615a1ff4a22c.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>horrid hollywood</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/8/9/b86f069f3bcbab6a1911c7c42c70c31f.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[three titles to avoid at all cost:

* Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
* The 40 Year-Old Virgin
* The Dukes of Hazzard

i'm permanently boycotting hollywood.  charlie and the chocolate factory was somewhat redeemable mostly because of Johnny Depp (everyone else was absolutely forgetable; come on the original was about Charlie Bucket!  This one was all Depp.  I mean ALL Depp; that kid had a personality of [excuse the awful pun] a bucket).  But the rest of this summer blows.  It doesn't just blow, it snorts coke.  Hollywood is so bad at this point that they are making bad reruns of bad TV shows.  But let's take a quick look at these titles:

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo - Come on!  Anything with that SNL one shot reject is going to suck.  the only show that portrayed Rob Schneider correctly was South Park when they showed him either as a carrot or a stapler.  Then look at this wad of gum under someone's shoe.  It's basically cheap laughs and a camera being run around with bad makeup.  It's not funny, it's not very original and it's an insult to the word intelligence.  Dante once elevated comedy above tragedy because it supposedly lifts the human spirit closer to God.  Well, in this case, you're just going to sink back down to Hell because it leaves a rock in your ass.

The 40 Year-Old Virgin - Why God why????  At first I was horrified at the thought that this guy who should've been castrated in the first scene might've been a TV series coming up with all the idiotic billboards of his pathetic face blocking out the sunlight around town.  Fortunately, i was wrong in my interpretation and that this is only a movie, hopefully doomed to near straight-to-DVD and then stuck in the bottom of a Blockbuster's rack collecting dust, cobwebs and dead spider bodies.  Do people enjoy watching other people's insecurities?  Or are Americans this insecure that they have to laugh at something so pathetic?  Either way, this movie sounds like some should-to-be-laid-off Hollywood scribbler (a writer implies talent) that walked around Sunset Blvd taking survey questions to connect the dots in this utterly offensive thing (for lack of a better term).  This is one of those movies where I'd prefer watching Manos: The Hand of Fate and sticking a fork in my eye while having a squirrel eat my left nutsack off rather than bearing witness to another commercial.  If America wants to torture Iraqi prisoners, just show them a screening of this.  It'll make their heads explode as if they were looking into the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

The Dukes of Hazzard - Man, do the bad string of Mr Hankeys continue.  They had Herbie, the Bad News Bears, now this (just typing this out is giving me a bowel movement).  I think they should just try to remake Manos Hand of Fate at this point.  It'll prove that Hollywood is worse than a guy with a $10000 budget and no screenplay since they're into copying bad tv shows/movies.

Hell, if you're going to dig into oldies, remake the Black Hole.  Come on!  I want to see an enlongated version of Yvette Mimieux getting lobotomized.  At least Hollywood can't screw that up (oh are my expectations really at rock bottom).....]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2005 13:49:03 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/8/9/b86f069f3bcbab6a1911c7c42c70c31f.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Theaters vs the Studios</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/8/19/06f4986dcbe3281444ebfc83f0ae7131.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[interesting article on how the theaters are firing back against our friends the Studios in Hollywood at producing subpar movies for the slump in sales.  well, no shit!  if you look at the recent releases,  there isn't anything even remotely touching a Casablanca, Ben Hur, etc. in terms of being a classic.  They're just being released like a person with a bad case of diarrhea.  I mean, guys like Rob Schneider ought to be homeless on the street with the crap that he produces.  

The other major problem is that if the studios detect even a bump in sales for a movie, they'd consider a follow up. I mean, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo shouldn't have made a first tier for anyone with clear sense (which overtly isn't the case with Hollywood's coked up frame of mind).

If you look at 2003, the real grosser was Return of the King.  In fact, because of ROTK, movie sales were up.  What's the difference?  this movie had a soul.  the current ones don't.  They don't have plots, characters, or any sense of emotion outside of stupifying the American people worse than shooting heroin in one's veins.  And just because Terry Gilliam is going to give his hand at a classic tale doesn't mean people are going to flock to the theaters all of a sudden.

The real issue is that you have all these producers, marketing, sales people lawyers, and general business people involved in movie making.  Real movie making is an art, not a business.  Hollywood can say what it wants about movies as a business, but the reason for movie's existence is a result of a desire to perform, not a desire to make money.  

When you look at crap like all these remakes, you can tell that these hacks in Hollywood are looking for a quick paycheck for their next whiff of crack.    I'd prefer Hollywood to burn to the ground and stop producing movies forever just to preserve the memory of what a movie real meant at this rate.  Like the music industry, I'm hoping these people just go away.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:36:59 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/8/19/06f4986dcbe3281444ebfc83f0ae7131.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>sci-fi channel</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/9/3/13f3abc0dbb9fc41ccd2501f030e6dfb.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[is it me or is it that nearly every show/movie on the sci-fi channel is a blatant ripoff of either Alien or Aliens? i know most of the hollywood writers out there are absolutely pathetic when it comes to creativity and ingenuity, but come on.  i wish Ridley Scott and James Cameron sue each time these assholes make a bad copy of their classics.  most times i hate lawsuits, but in the case of bad, blatant ripoffs, people ought to be nailed to the wall for giving the rest of the public mental indigestion.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 03 Sep 2005 15:16:44 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/9/3/13f3abc0dbb9fc41ccd2501f030e6dfb.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>shaolin soccer</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/10/24/aafa7a89794f6b39dde0e071c1785c63.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[got to see this one finally.  it's pretty outrageously.  it's basically like Shaw Brothers studios meets recent, campy Hollywood such as the 40 Year Old Loser, etc.  but it's got an interesting viewpoint in hyperbolizing how Shaolin martial arts can be applied to any aspect of daily life.  in this case, of course, they use soccer as the key (probably because of exploting the whole World Soccer Tournament back in 2002).  

honestly though, while they attempt to acquire the mysticism of the martial arts, the actual kung fu in the movie is nearly non-existent.  most of the moves are digitally beefed up.  so instead of even getting wire-fu, you're getting CG-fu.  as an old school Shaw Brothers fan and a fan of people like Gordon Liu, these sequences are just too far fetched for me.  yes, it's supposed to be silly but you end up having less respect for the martial arts because it's impurified by the CG.

good kung fu movies that want to show a true appreciation for the arts ought to minimize such interaction, even if the intention is to be over-the-top and humorous.  then again we don't have Liu Chia-Liang directing so that's a major minus ;)]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 24 Oct 2005 12:32:23 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/10/24/aafa7a89794f6b39dde0e071c1785c63.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Office Space Special Edition!  Yeah baby!</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/11/6/47638341285d266817ea2f29590490cf.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[This is definitely one movie worth buying!  In fact, i wouldn't even mind buying multiple copies and handing it out to coworkers and managers alike.  I think the next time i become incredibly disgruntled, I'll purchase a copy of this movie and hand it to my supervisor (along with a Swingline Stapler, red of course).  funny thing is that i noticed most managers have never seen this movie.  coincidence?]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 06 Nov 2005 10:59:43 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/11/6/47638341285d266817ea2f29590490cf.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>office space DVD and Macromedia Crap</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/11/7/b106f311bb86169c611c8c9e299a7e40.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[bought the Office Space Special Edition DVD this weekend.  what a piece of junk this is!  i love the movie, but now Macromedia is proliferating their crappy flash on DVDs as well.  the stupid thing would ironically crash or not play in my drive.  in fact, powerdvd (i think) wouldn't play because of copyright protection.  wtf?!!?!?!!?

well, linux to the rescue (as usual).  xine is screwed right now so i'm using mplayer.  can't access the root menu, which sucks, but at least i could play the DVD.  thanks a lot fuckers.  i definitely won't buy anymore DVDs, nor even rent them.  fuck hollywood, the RIAA, MPAA and their paranoid schemes.  may their greed and lust for power turn them into shrivelled prunes like Dietrich from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I hope the executives and lawyers at the company get a personal viewing of the opening of the Ark of the Covenant and that their faces melt off.]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Nov 2005 12:59:35 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/11/7/b106f311bb86169c611c8c9e299a7e40.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>anxiety tv</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/11/25/b1e178f8952b5ac31427e24d1b2b3c30.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[i've come to realize one of America's largest problems is what i call "Anxiety TV."  Anxiety TV are shows like 24, Court TV, the Lifetime Channel, COPS, etc.  These are shows that generate high strung situations that impel viewers into a state of stress.  Yes, stress.  It's the cliche, Hollywood tension that has become overdone in order to generate a constant sense of suspense that hooks viewers.  From afar, viewers can watch as voyeurs into a pseudo-fantasy realm that is cathartic.  Yet it also has a negative effect of increasing people's sense of insecurities.  

Channels like Lifetime prey on women's fears through a naive feminine viewpoint.  CourtTV constantly plays cop type of dramas that exhibit polarized types, namely good cop bad robber.  Wrestling (which I am a fan of) pits stereotypes into worked situations that are meant to draw people in through focusing on storylines based on recent events, politics, or cultures.  I can go on about how these elements are played out.

But instead I want to focus on is the net effect.  This form of entertainment (if you to describe it as such) is similar to riding a rollercoaster for a cheap thrill.  Or gambling in Vegas.  It's the absent adrenaline rush from our ordinary lives.  With postmodernization people are trapped in the corporate world of strict business rules, 9-5 work days, and otherwise uneventful and unmeaningful existence.  Couple that with America's passion for unhealthy food (namely the fast type and restaurants that serve up blood pressure increasing dishes), America has become a spot of insecurity, anxiety and depression.

Yes, depression.  I've noticed a massive increase in advertisements for programs to help solve depression after 9-11.  Then you have all these other related issues that are leftovers from the economic recession of the dot com bubble such as high medical cost, inflated housing prices, job security worries, and increasing bills from other areas like gas, phone, cable.  

Honestly, I find this to be somewhat of an elaborate conspiracy, not in a centralized spot, but by separate machines working against each other that has sent America into a spiral of paranoia and anxiety.  Since coming back, I've found myself more tense than usual.  People are worse on the road than ever.  I'm constantly worried about my family because of their economic situation.  And my health has taken a southern turn.  

The problem is that there aren't real support groups.  Well, there are but they are only in it for money as the machine of capitalism continues to consume this society while businesses spring up to assault each of these areas.  But it really doesn't do anyone any good in the long term.  It's become a rat race.

And TV helps propel this sensation.  I can no longer watch TV because everything is done in a hypermode, something where people aren't allowed to digest what goes on, instead spewing action and fast dialogue to assault the senses and utilize rhetoric to make one feel small and helpless.  

The funniest thing about all this is the ease of escape.  All you have to do is pull your electrical cord out of your TV, shut off your phones, and escape to a mountain for real peace.  Yet it seems as though this culture that has been created and validated has become unescapable.  People are addicted to their TV shows, their food, their movies, this material world that defines nothing except their economic class.  

I was growing extremely disgusted with my coworkers' monstrous addiction to TV at my last company.  Nearly all their references came from some pop culture element like TV or movies.  But why care so much about something that you're far removed from?  I feel the notion of Hollywood life is so far (despite the fact that i was working in West Hollywood).  but i'm talking about this portrayed glamorous image that you see from magazines and entertainment news shows.  you feel low and jealous because you can't attain the same level.

what frustrates me is that despite this, we somehow support them haplessly.  i spend my hard earned money rather than on my health on products like DVDs to further embellish these peoples' lives.  yet they never give anything back to us.  more anxiety TV.

yes, i'm on a boycott of these things.  the thing though is that sometimes it's impossible to escape it.  i made a horrible mistake at the start of the year in agreeing to pick up cable TV.  horrible idea!  now my mom cannot stop watching programs that validates her insecurities.  everytime the TV is on, i want to puke.  i want to vomit out this culture of anxiety and cleanse my system.

but i will return to Japan and be removed from this.  no more American anxiety TV for me.  no more false advertisement that brainwashes me into thinking things like Taco Bell is good food.  i want to define my life around my peers and get as far away from this diseased, decadent culture as possible.  i can't even utilize the word culture here because that usually implies a socially enriching phenomenon.  instead, it feels only like....death here.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:12:36 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2005/11/25/b1e178f8952b5ac31427e24d1b2b3c30.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>Densha Otoko the Movie</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/2/7/b08eb2186c6c3907e51b9b4ac9a9909a.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I just finished watching it.  I can't help but wonder if someone really did write about me.  I feel as though my ex-girlfriend wrote it up and posted our story on the net, with of course some editing.  Some scenes are so painful to watch because of how unbearable the feeling of loneliness can be in Tokyo or in life.  I believe someone mentioned how the movie portrayed Densha compared with the TV drama.  the main emphasis was on the guy's loneliness.  there's a lot more than that, but it seemed that his alienation caused him to be generally anti-social.

in either case, the thing that hit home the most was everyone shouting at "ganbatte!!!!" at the figurative train platform while he was in a humiliated position.  i felt as though i made the right choice in returning to Japan.  i am certain that this movie was written about me for me and as a moment of destiny in my life to remember what values are important to me.  i don't care what other people say of whether it's real or not.  I AM DENSHA OTOKO.  I know this in my heart more than anything and that is more than enough for me to believe in it.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Feb 2006 09:16:21 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/2/7/b08eb2186c6c3907e51b9b4ac9a9909a.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>more american fascism</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/2/22/b20ca6d5f29821c4a66de9989528830d.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[the movie fascists of america once again have imposed their ogliarchic reigns upon another country, this time switzerland and belgian where they shutdown AND arrested the operator of an eDonkey server network. i suggest using force against America's imperialistic industries, but too many of you are anile and fey to do so.  instead, the next thing is to avoid purchasing any form of media in the next 10 years.

think about the benefits of this act:

1) saving tons of money for more useful items like a membership to the gym, a hybrid car, higher quality food, your child's education, donation to a worthy charity, etc.
2) saving tons of time that you can spend on something more productive.  for instance, reading a book, increasing your knowledge about world cultures, obtaining a new skill for your job.
3) avoiding the crappy food at movie theatres, saving even more money and avoiding excess weight on junk food
4) becoming more active by not being reduced to a passive, useless sack of shit on your couch
5) assuring that undeserving people aren't making more than their worth (i.e. directors, producers, hollywood/recording studio directors, lawyers, crappy actors/actresses)

i don't understand people's fascination with indulging themselves with crappy hollywood films.  quite honestly, if hollywood movies were actually decent (meaning above the current cut of puke inducing bowel movements), then people would be more willing to pay for them.  i'd pay for any artist i'd really care for under any circumstances.  however, these so-called artists in hollywood and the mainstream music industry are nothing but two bit hacks that somehow made it through some overrated school and had either luck on their side or some connection (read: fucked some producer) to procure their spot.  why support such a crummy industry that is nothing but politics that doesn't demonstrate anything socially useful anymore?

if you really want to show hollywood and the recording industries how you feel, stop consuming.  take your credit card, leave it at home or in your wallet, or better yet cut it up and shove it back to those fuckers in remonstration of their brainwashing of your lives.  everything they produce is nothing more than legalized crack.  get away from it as soon as possible and recognize them for what they are.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:23:56 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/2/22/b20ca6d5f29821c4a66de9989528830d.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>great quote from MPAA</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/3/13/ec6e54dc06c62a17ce61362b06ca6a9b.html</link>
<description><![CDATA["Notwithstanding the debate in Sweden, Bernards said the MPAA still believes that those who use and operate The Pirate Bay are simply thieves." - Wired.

Takes one to know one, right?  i find it hillarious that the MPAA considers it's contents "intellectual property."  when was the last time stuff coming from the MPAA or RIAA intellectual?  saying people are pirating Britney Spears of her "intellectual property" is like saying shit doesn't smell.  

the funnier part is that these so-called "artists" pirate shit all the time by hacking off music items or rehashing crappy movies (Tim Allen anyone????) and calling it their own.  funny how Metal Church was right in their song "The Human Factor."

face it MPAA and RIAA: you have no right to call those elements you're suiing over "intellectual."  if you call them commercial, then that's fine.  but intellectual implies having a goddamn brain and using it.  your shit doesn't involve that anymore.  it involves some idiot fat fucks in a boardroom trying to rip off ideas and having some chart with large scale parties being planned for your elitists friends as the only real pay off while patting yourselves on the back for increasing earnings, when in truth you have disgraced all the real intentions of what art means in this world.

and as for you fascists pigs that dare to associate yourselves with the word "art" or any facsimile of it, you should do yourselves a favor, eat about 200 krispy kremes, cry in a corner, shave the midpart of your head, let the sides grow into triangular pinnacles and apply for a treatment at Scott Adam's.  you have no talent, you have deserving of the word talent, you are nothing more than greedy, baseless, self-preserving animals that are cosmetically and prosthetically engendered.  but really you belong in some pigfarm sniffing cow dung with your lawyer and producer buddies.

do the world a favor and spend your hoard on a $200k space flight on Virgin G so that it hopefully comes crashing down from the weight of your inflated egos.]]></description>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:21:48 -0700</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/3/13/ec6e54dc06c62a17ce61362b06ca6a9b.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>napolean dynamite</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/4/8/622bf3b5a1de1fb3b386bd32754de855.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[this is a very bizarre movie.  interestingly enough, they translated it in Japan as "Bus Otoko" (the bus guy) as a reference to Densha Otoko (it's easier for people here to relate to that title as opposed to the more difficult Napolean Dynamite title).  part of the bizarreness of this movie is because of the stupor people seem to be in.  part of that might be due to how it's supposedly a depiction of some midwest type of town.

in some ways, it seems like the movie asks what happens if you stick the typical nerd (or nerds if you include Kip) into a midwest town and how they would handle themselves.  the typical nerd in this movie isn't so typical.  Napolean isn't the type that's flaunting computer games but he's very involved in drawing fantasy art and apparently has a strong interest in some format of Dungeons and Dragons.  he's uncle/cousin/brother/father figure, Kip, is more of the typical alienated nerd, chatting online with his love interest.

i think part of the fascination (for me at least) for this show is due to the fact that it's not really linear.  you can't initially predict what people are going to do.  no expectations are setup.  it's very quiet and things kinda happen. the plot is extremely simple: Napolean wants to help his friend win the school election.  around him are all these bizarre midwestern folk that apparently are attempting to depict the midwest.  you get farmers, the typical jocks/school bullies, hot popular women, and loser uncle.  it's a very bizarre mix of people that exist together more out of coincidence and proximity than by force of nature.

yet i suppose some people can relate to this movie because of the issues one may find in school.  for instance, the bullies who try to grab money from smaller kids.  in the case of Napolean, his response is interesting especially since he seems to depict the nerd archtype.  his responses outside of calling people "Idiots!" are pretty much apathetic.  some may say disaffected.  he doesn't show emotion in almost any condition.  even when he's beat up, the only thing we can understand is that his jaw hurts from a beating.  but he doesn't demonstrate any sense of regret or self pity.  and the bullies seem to ignore him for the most part.  

one part that i liked was an interesting affirmation of the chicano gangster type.  somehow because of napolean's friendship with Pedro, Napolean is allowed to intermingle with Pedro's seemingly gangster friends/family members.  during the election process, Napolean gives one bullied kid a token and mentions that Pedro would offer his protection services.  as the kid was about to get mugged for his bike by a bully, Pedro's relatives pull up in their low rider and scare him off.  

this movie somewhat reminded me of Dazed and Confused as well as slackers.  although the movie does climax in a more Hollywood happy-ending type of format with Pedro winning the elections after Napolean performs a slick dance and Kip gets married to a gorgeous black woman (another bizarre moment), the general feeling of this movie is disaffection and alienation as well as this non-linear, somewhat irrelevant feeling that persist.  i think part of the way they filmed the show was to help characterize these types of people by showing cuts of life.  for instance, the part where Napolean is earning money through moving chickens around on a farm or the section where he's eating a sandwich (covered by flies) and drinking a raw egg protein potion.  scenes like that are extremely odd and end up going nowhere, but you get a sense of the feeling for being out there, if that's the intent.

i have to admit that i was pleasantly surprised by this type of movie.  i do believe it was originally released as an independent.  that more than anything probably had to do with my liking of the movie as usual hollywood crap would never dare to venture into the realm of real postmodernity type of filming.  

whether or not the characters and environment for this movie are possible is irrelevant to me.  it's the filming style and sensation conjured up through the non-linear design and deadbeat environment that paradoxically bring this movie to life.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 08 Apr 2006 21:02:39 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/4/8/622bf3b5a1de1fb3b386bd32754de855.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>X-Men 3</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/6/17/d2fa5625ae1de6fd9c7a23e7d072ec1d.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[very Hollywood-ish movie but the typical Hollywood-ish nonsense didn't bug me as much this time.  Actually, a fun movie that had a nice pace and kept you locked in.  There were some nice twists here that I wasn't expecting that made the film stand out namely in Prof X's death, Cyclops' death and the removal of powers from Rogue, Mystique and Magneto.  Of course, supposedly after the ending credits there's a little surprise which shows Magneto moving a chess piece, but I think it's going to be interesting to see how that may turn out.  Apparently, this was all a triology so we can expect more.

one thing i noticed about the story was the structure in how they ordered the events to allow certain characters to be emphasized even more than others.  Here, for instance, Rogue ran away to remove her powers, thus freeing up a spot to introduce Kitty Pride.  also, Cyclops' death early on made room for Wolverine and Storm to take lead (not to mention Xavier's departure).  we had Beast who is played by Frasier so more dialogue was needed on that part.  then Collosus, Juggernaut and Archangle were displayed along with some of the other mutants on Magneto's side.  Naturally, the biggest problem always presented in X-men stories is dealing with the numerous personalities.  Many are rich but allowing them to show up in a story is hard because you can only pick so many and develop.

Even if people died and powers were removed, this is the X-Men so we can easily expect people to make comebacks. I certainly hope they create a better Cyclops.  he's a major character in the story and while he's a dick, at least he isn't so annoying by comparison.  Patrick Stewart has always been the natural pick for Xavier so hopefully he'll stay on if and when they decide to release another one.

of course, replacing existing characters who haven't died would be the greater challenge as these movies aren't made that frequently and that people grow older.  I've always thought someone from Destiny's Child would make a great replacement for Storm.  Michelle Yeow or Zhang Zi would be perfect for the role of Psylocke (Zhang Zi moreso and definitely better than that orientalizing disaster called Memoirs).  Collosus ought to have been played by Schwartz, but he's too old and in office.  I've come to like Ian as Magneto though.  he's just so charismatic and elegant on screen that he helps to elevate the role.

of course, there was the rumored White Queen.  i saw the picture of the one they wanted and she would've been HOT.  i've always thought a Cybil Shepard type would've made an excellent White Queen (then I guess her daughter?)]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:37:30 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/6/17/d2fa5625ae1de6fd9c7a23e7d072ec1d.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>king kong: how to piss me off</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/7/2/5e683a4bee7258bcedd4a077113650f4.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[okay, i admit that i watched this damn movie like 5 times on the plane flight back to LA (this shows the general lack of quality on the plane).  but this movie did every damn thing to anger me.

first, it's clear that hollywood can no longer produce movies outside of CG, large budget, etc. as well as working in all these insider Hollywood jokes that just slam producers and the Hollywood industry. if people in hollywood hated these producers so much, why not just gather them up in one plane and send them into an active volcano?  come on guys.  not everyone in the world works in Hollywood and most people, imo, don't give a damn about your little gripes.  so move onto something people can relate to.

that said, the bigger issue that got me was how everyone in the movie was practically a bunch of morons.  i think king kong was the only intelligent species around.  the rest deserved to die in the light of Darwinism since they were unfit mentally to do anything useful in the first place.  i won't go into details about what happened but geeze.  i felt like i was watching juraissic park 4 for a while.

lastly, the goddamn hollywood plot.  these days it boils down to throw obstacles in front of hero(es), take rest, wait for scream, go home for finish.  can someone in hollywood write anything besides this idiotic structure?]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 02 Jul 2006 11:08:35 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/7/2/5e683a4bee7258bcedd4a077113650f4.html</guid>
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<item>
<title>paris hilton and the DUI</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/9/8/7f9e7130f244e089f82ce20dd79b4d20.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[okay this is old news, but this girl really needs to have her parents lose all their fortune so she's not a spoiled little brat.  i'm certain i'm not the only one who's thinking this either.  but i sincerely curse someone like this so that she's humbled.  i mean, i curse her so that she and her family loses all their fortune, becomes homeless and NEVER recovers it.  for herself, i hope in this scenario that she's ostracized, becomes obese and eats out of a doggie bag on a nightly basis.

for someone with so much wealth, she ought to be disciplined as a better representative of society.  ]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2006 21:22:52 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/9/8/7f9e7130f244e089f82ce20dd79b4d20.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>south park does world of warcraft</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/18/8a20ae2e5a7508bc6a8e01b74d9ac4f0.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[oh man, this one was probably one of the best ones done in a while.  best part was the, um, evolution of the kids.  cartman becoming jabba the hutt proportions with completely flat, elongated feet was unbelievably hillarious.  i love the accurate commentary on gamers.  sounds like matt and trey must've got addicted to world of warcraft for a bit.  anyway, that was really cool for a crossover (which i generally hate).]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:46:53 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/18/8a20ae2e5a7508bc6a8e01b74d9ac4f0.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>Superman Returns</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/22/7116669990cf29efd2bdedbfb62f46e4.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[I've never been a big fan of the Superman series, but I had the opportunity to check this movie out after a few of my friends said that it was worth it.  Overall, the movie was a decent re-introduction to the character (actually the actor since everyone ought to know whom the main characters are).  Mostly, i was looking forward to seeing Kevin Spacey.  He is by far the best asshole character alive (btw, i think i drove behind him one day going to work in West Hollywood).  I completely idolize him.  He always plays these cerebral characters and enunciates his disdain for society with greater lines. In the past, Lex Luthor was just annoying.  Gene Hackman playing a goofball with a fat sidekick only made me want to walk out of the theaters.  But Kevin Spacey is the perenial delicious villain who can be cynically comedic in one moment, then dastardly the next.  One day I hope I can eventually be in a position like his character from Swimming with Sharks (rather than constantly having bosses like that).]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:09:35 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/22/7116669990cf29efd2bdedbfb62f46e4.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>WTC</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/28/d6a586802fe60a68203f995a7546702e.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[this movie sucked.  what a sob movie trying to bake a few coins off cheap emotion.  it's equally funny seeing people using cheap arguments in assaulting each other on the internet in the perpetual debate of terrorism, Bush, and polemics.  this is why a movie like this shouldn't be made at a point in time like this.  but mostly i think it was done with Mr. Oliver Stoned trying to cash in like people at a Walmart the day before Christmas.

also, that piano drove me crazy!  how artificial could you get!?!?!?]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:43:42 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/28/d6a586802fe60a68203f995a7546702e.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>Pirates 2</title>
<link>http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2006/10/28/c4a88bea40008710d000852118ac7e99.html</link>
<description><![CDATA[i enjoyed the 1st one mostly due to Johnny Depp.  this one was just thoroughly confusing.  actually, it reminded me of a more comedic Terminator 3, where instead of a 1 hour car crash, you have a 1 hour hamster wheel chase.  there was little plot nor character development in this piece of rubbish.  certainly, the assumption would have been made that most people saw the first one.  so this one only introduced us to Will's father and captain Puss.  but like Star Wars, the character of captain Puss was about as fleshed out (excuse the intended pun) as General Grievous.  sure he had a bad pirate accident, was spongy, a nasty demeanor and was a dick.  what made him different from other villains?

note to Hollywood: I mentioned this before with my review of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that just because you give some dude or gal a British/foreign accent, does not equate what they do to acting.

at this point, i think the only decent material coming out of Hollywood these days are PURE comedies.  the only reason why i can validate it is because at least the dialog is somewhat thought out in attempting to derive some emotion from the audience.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:51:51 -0600</pubDate>
<guid>http:/