Archive for September, 2005
Serenity Review
Posted by A R Baboon in Movies on September 28, 2005
Disclaimer: I have never watched an episode of Firefly due to time restrictions so my review will not include any respective perspective. This review also contains no spoilers!
Monday night I had an opportunity to watch the preview release of Serenity. The film is a feature spinoff of the Firefly television series, however, it seems to stand quite nicely on its own. The fact that the distribution company was interested in some independent coverage of the preview event was an immediate hint that these folks had done something wonderfully non-standard, but I was not expecting quite this quality of film. This is not to say that it was an unusual SciFi or a new plot twist but it did not come off as canned or purely demographicly guided. Much to my amazement, many times I would see the first half of Hollywood formula and the director entirely chose a different second half. This made the film that much more enguaging and helped with the suspention of disbelief that I often have trouble with.
The specific class of story is a space western. In that way Serenity definately had a Cowboy Bebop feel to it. For those who have never seen Cowboy Bebop think Hans Solo type character and crew get caught up in a larger plot while trying to run some barely (or il) legal operation in a moderately small spaceship. Of course in the case of Serenity the larger plot involves a girl on board who is to be captured at all costs by powerful conspiritors. The film seldom stops the action and quips which should quiet those who did not like that aspect of Batman Begins. Eventhough I have not seen the TV series the characters were developed quite quickly and thoroughly. The opening scene provides the foundation and back story sufficient to carry the story as well.
The acting is hard to guage. In general the acting was enguaging and certainly the actors stayed in character. This is no doubt due to the time spent creating the Firefly series. However there were a few dialog exchanges that felt rather like forced volleys than natural conversations. This is very obvious in the final scenes and I will choose to blame editing. I could not help but notice a couple of doubing errors as well. These may be corrected for full theatrical release. That aside there were many lines delivered with Sean Connery – James Bond sauve and timing.
Overall I would have to give this movie a 8.5/10 in the genre targeted. I am definatly interested in DVD’s of the Firefly series now. On to another point about the prescreening itself I would just like to note how much more fun that was than a normal movie-going experience. Here is an idea for theater outlets – give people a reason not to stay home by making more medium size rooms with targeted audience:
Theater 10 showing Serenity for techies
Theater 11 showing 20 minutes of bizzare art and Serenity for people who normally go to the Ritz
Theater 12 showing Serenity for people who like to shout at the screen
Theater 13 showing Serenity for people who innapropriately brought young children
Oregon Vacation Photos
Posted by A R Baboon in Art, Snap Snap Grin Grin on September 16, 2005
Another day of new photos. Here are the photos of Mount Hood, the Japanese gardens, the Columbia river gorge, Echo beach, Cannon beach, devils churn, and other random places on the coast as well as Mount St. Helens (washington). They are in our Gallery.
Utah Vacation Added
Posted by A R Baboon in Art, Snap Snap Grin Grin on September 14, 2005
These are our pictures of Utah and Arizona; specificly Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, and a little bit of the north rim of the Grand Canyon. They are in our Gallery.
Longwood Garden Pictures Added
Posted by A R Baboon in Art, Snap Snap Grin Grin on September 11, 2005
Wish I could say this is from our yard… I am finally posting pictures from our first aniversary at Longwood Gardens in the Brandywine area. They are in our Gallery.
Overlaying Utility
Posted by A R Baboon in Computer Science, Technophilia on September 8, 2005
So far Google Earth, while wicked cool, has added only moderate value (think in comparison to the other Google Services). While Earth-browsing last night I stumbled on a high capability though. Apparently anyone with a pro version can do arbitrary and live streaming overlays. If you have Google Earth, following this Keyhole file will allow you to select live NOAA overlays including an animation for California. If you don’t here is a low res taste.
MinGW The Merciful
Posted by A R Baboon in Computer Science, Linux and Systems on September 7, 2005
A special thanks goes out to my fellow GNU users who need want to program under MS Windows. Eventhough they don’t provide a random function MinGW is definately a must for those wishing to create good native software under MS Windows. For those who want to preserve there voice anyway. I will try to share some lessons learned as I fully figure out how to get things working right. Here is a little nugget in the mean time since MS does not provide strtok_r
char *c_strtok_r( char *str, char *delim, char **save_ptr ) {
char *ptr;
if( !str ) {
if( !*save_ptr || !**save_ptr )
return( NULL );
str = *save_ptr;
}
while( *str && strchr( delim, *str ) )
++str;
if( !*str )
return( NULL );
ptr = str;
while( *ptr && !strchr( delim, *ptr ) )
++ptr;
*save_ptr = *ptr ? ptr + 1 : ptr;
*ptr = '\0';
return( str );
}
Picture Pages
Posted by A R Baboon in Art, Our Little Bundles of..., Snap Snap Grin Grin on September 7, 2005
Please go visit our picture galleries. We have a lot more to follow. I will try to post as fast as I can get them out of iPhoto and into gthumb. The galleries will soon have some captions. Follow the Galleries link.
Site Is Back Online
Posted by A R Baboon in Uncategorized on September 6, 2005
And there was much rejoicing …yay… Hopefully this is now new and improved version of Rubinium.org with category icons links to the galleries and regular posts even 