The Swede, the Rat, and the Robot
Lots of things that I need to write about from this week that I've been too lazy to talk about until now, so I'll get started. I suppose fast and furious is the way to go about it, but this'll probably still be long (atleast I hope it is; I haven't had a long post in a really long time. I'm starting to think I've lost my verbosity...)
So, I mentioned on Saturday that I went to IKEA and Bay Street in Emeryville with a bunch of people. I posted a couple pictures of me and the iPhone and said I'd write up more later. It's been five days since then, so my memories might be a bit rusty. Bear with me.
The Swede:
Let's start with the Swede. IKEA is a giant from the Scandinavian country we all love to hate. I can't say for sure whether it's because their socialist, or it's because they beat Finland for Olympic Gold, but either way, the Swedes are perfect targets for our malicious fury. Now, to be honest, I'm not sure what they've really ever done to me or my kind, but they make crap furniture, so that has to count for something...right?
I kid. IKEA is great. I love IKEA. There's so much to love about IKEA, I probably can't even start to finish a list about all that IKEA means to me. They have crappy furniture for so little money that I won't feel bad about trashing it when I move out of my apartment in two years. I have a lofted bed, a mattress, a desk, and a dresser from IKEA that I picked up for less than $500 total last year. It's great. And the food? I <3 lingonberry.
So, I decided to get a bunch of people together for IKEA lunch and a movie at AMC Bay Street. My motivation? I needed to pick up an entertainment center for my new 42” plasma TV and look around for a bookshelf for my room. Maggie and Coral needed to look for a bookshelf for their living room. Yuan wanted a bookshelf (notice a pattern...yeah, I have friends that read books, or atleast have books). Joyce wanted something and Edlyn wanted to see me. Oh, and Kenji, Kris, and Tyler decided to tag along for lunch and a movie.
We plan to get there around noon for lunch, but Kris has to drop off a futon and some other stuff at his apartment, so it takes awhile before we can leave from Berkeley. We get there a bit after 1pm and we meet up with the car from FC. They're lounging around in the living room showroom on the sofas, so I take some pictures and we get moving. I stop around a little bit to look at TV stands, but everything looks kind of shady or is way too expensive for my budget even though they're having their July 4th sale. There is one on sale that fits my budget, my living room, and gives me shelves to put a DVD player and Wii, so I note it. Everyone is moving ahead though, and just so I don't get lost, I don't pay too much more attention to the showroom and start scooting ahead. At some point, we jump through one of those IKEA shortcuts into the Kids section where the girls start going crazy.
Two side notes here: First, what's up with girls and kids stuff like toys and cute stuffed animals? If I could get the same reaction as a stuffed Nemo out of Maggie, I think I could be much happier...and more self-confident. It's very bruising to a man's self esteem when an inanimate representation of a fish is more attractive to his girlfriend than he is. Second, what's up with crazy IKEA shortcuts? They're like portals from the office world into some other world. Like those special super pipes in Super Mario Bros that take you from World 2-2 to World 5-1, except there are no goombas and I'm not an Italian plumber that spits fire.
Anyways, the Kids section is right next to the lunch cafe where we were planning to eat, we were running late, and I was hungry. Instead of continuing my search for furniture, my stomach ordered me to “grragrragruch”. Roughly translated, I think it means “Eat some food, bitch”. When your stomach swears at you, you know its time to settle it down. What better way to ease that hunger pang than with some delectable swedish meatballs and swig (or a gallon) of lingonberry juice. Say it with me - “Yum yum lingonberry”.
Of course, not all was rosy in our IKEA dining experience. I ordered the plate of meatballs, like I usually do (my one time here), but instead of potatoes like I wanted, they gave me steamed vegetables. I end up having to steal half a potato from Maggie and her shared plate with Coral and Joyce. Of course, I end up having to trade a broccoli for it, but I think I made out okay on that deal. The largest disappointment was the watered down lingonberry juice though. It was light pink, like a vitamin water, and it had almost no taste to it. Talking to a few people, we all swore that the lingonberry juice was darker and sweeter the last time they were here. We were right. Ten minutes later it was back to good – nice, dark, and sweet. By the end of lunch I finished three glasses and was working on a fourth. It was good and I was happy.
After lunch, we went downstairs to the warehouse and went looking through a bunch of cheap crap. Like a flock of misdirected sheep, we started wandering around looking at random stuff. I hit someone with a cheap metal pot. No was hurt, proving how poorly constructed they were, but I suppose that was fine. I wasn't going to buy it anyways. By the time we actually got the furniture floor of the warehouse, we were running short on time and decided to come back later to actually get things. We never made it back (I will be going back Saturday), but that was ok, cause I got to hit up the Apple store and play with the iPhone.
/iGasm
The Rat:
AMC Bay Street. 4PM. Ratatouille.
The newest Pixar masterpiece came out last Friday. Although it opened to a tame $47M, rottentomatoes has it at 96% fresh and viewer reviews have been nearly unanimously positive. So what did I think about it?
It's been awhile, so my memory is sketchy, but I'll preface by saying that it was good, but not that good. Charming, but unremarkable. I think the biggest allure was the quality of dialogue and the beauty of animation, but what it had in charm and flow it lacked in conflict. It was obtuse and undirected. The villain lasted about half the movie and the ultimate villain wasn't really a villain at all. What that left was this unsatisfied feeling at the end. There wasn't a payoff for watching the movie like there was with Finding Nemo or The Incredibles. Sure, there was some morality. “Anyone can cook” - which is to suggest that anyone who puts their mind to something, has a super talented friend, or is a mutagenic freak can do anything they want...
Of course that's not what makes Pixar who they are, and that's not to say Ratatouille is a bad movie. It's quality stuff, it's just not at the level of the greatest few animated movies ever. Too much voice-over narration. Too few characters to really care about. Too much moralism. Too much for too little payoff. But I'm being critical.
It's exciting, it's clever, and it's very endearing. There are moments that are truly tense and dramatic and truly light and comedic, striking a very fine balance between emotions. I love the interaction between the characters, especially with Remy and his family and the end was enjoyable if not provocative. All in all, it's quite the movie-going experience and I would recommend it with moderate expectations.
The Robot:
California Theatres. 7:15pm. Transformers.
Like I said last night. Autobots, roll out! Woooooooo...
What a ride. I'd like to say that I was especially underwhelmed by another predictably overbloated Michael Bay action thriller, but it was better than that. It was good. I'll preface my review with that. I thoroughly enjoyed it. So did Coral, so did Rbs. That's validation enough to see it.
Why was it good? It was action-packed with unbelievable special effects. You might have heard already that the transformations were seamless. They were better than that. They were a dynamic visual feast that made me drool. Just sick. Put that stuff on IMAX and I don't think I'd be able to get up after the movie. Put that stuff on a smallish screen with weird eerie blue ambient light and I'm stuck talking about it 24 hours later like it's the second coming. It was awesome.
The first 90 minutes were tense, dramatic, and relatively well done. Shia Lebeauf played the awkward nervous kid perfect. His dialogue wasn't forced or awkward, but fresh and lively. Real. Bernie Mac's early cameo was precious and I felt like the movie was really coming together. Even Megan Fox played her role stunningly (literally...she was hot). Then you had the military story arc which intertwined with the Lebeauf storyline and layered the tension very effectively. Things were happening, you knew it. Things were connecting and you were doing the connecting and the Transformers were here, brutally devastating the world, but the answer was still some beat up Camero that didn't do anything cool, but could given time. The only complaint that I had with the first 90 minutes was the introduction by Optimus Prime when they introduced the All-spark as “The Cube”, luckily it was at the beginning of the movie and I could forgive the terrible screenwriting as it was quickly replaced by fast-paced action fighting and the wit and delivery of Shia Lebeauf hawking wares on eBay to his class.
Unfortunately, the plot holes started to add up, and the tone of the movie started to grow uneven. It got too into itself, growing overly dramatic at times, before trying to lighten the mood with caricatures and one-liners. The dialogue got overbearing and robotic rather than lively and real like it was at the beginning. And they started letting Megan Fox act. Her emotional control was awful. Her delivery was stiff as cardboard. And she was beat up and not as hot. Three strikes. Her performance left a lot to be desired by the end.
Then there was the action scenes at the end, which were awesome, but could have been EPIC. Think Lord of the Rings epic, like the battle at Minas Tirith. Instead the action scenes were short, uneven, and a little unrealistic. At one point, Bumblebee and Rachet? (I can't remember the names of the Autobots for the life of me...) transform and stop missles from Starscream from hitting the armada, but while Bumblebee has his legs blown off, Jazz in his Porsche stays in disguise and backs up, instead of transforming and actually fighting. Serious oversight. Then, during a chase up a building, Shia Lebeauf manages to outrun a leaping Megatron to the top of building. Finally, during the supposedly epic battle between Megatron and Optimus Prime, the movie decides to crap on itself and show a bunch of F22's getting blown up by Starscream rather than dedicate 10 minutes to the biggest, baddest, robot fight ever. Think Neo vs. Million Smith's but turn Neo into Optimus Prime, Smith into Megatron (it works too...Hugo Weaving voices Megatron), make it graphically more impressive, add an awesome soundtrack, and it would have been the best animated special effects action scene ever made. Instead they cut away, after a small little fall from a building and a tussle, have Megatron blown up by F22 missiles, have Optimus Prime be neutered and useless, and have “The Cube” in the hands of Sam Witwicky save the day. Disappointing.
With all that negativity, you'd think I hated the movie. But nope, I said it before. It was good. I'll see it again, not because it satisfies my childish urges to have transforming robots, but because it was a solid movie (better than Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 for sure). I'm only negative because I see so much more than could've happened with this movie to make it a real film, a classic film, instead of the summer blip on the blockbuster radar. I saw a chance for this movie to be unthinkably unbelievable because of what the people at Industrial Light and Magic did to make the robots real, because of how good Shia Lebeauf was, because of how good looking Megan Fox was. I wanted this to be ridiculous. Instead, it was only awesome.
You'll have to see it to believe me though, so see it. Recommended.
That just about wraps up everything I've wanted to say over the past week, so sorry if I'm a little blogged out the next few days or if you're tired from reading all these small little words. I think it was worth it, but I suppose that's up to you to decide.
