Wednesday, April 21, 2004
It's Been A Long Time...
...Since I've updated. I apologize to the few of your who actually read this thing. I should have updated this more during Easter break, but when you're relaxing, sometimes you just don't want to do anything.
Anyway, tomorrow I begin the big exams that we have at the end of every year (not the IB). I probably haven't studied enough (I place part of the blame on essays and a stupid PE project I had to do recently - don't they realize we need time to study in order to do well?) but I'll probably do decently enough.
In other news: I finally updated my website again with the review/analysis of The Passion of the Christ. It's my longest and probably most in-depth review yet, and beware of many spoilers. I have no idea when I'll have time to write another review, but here are my thoughts on two movies I've seen recently.
Along Came Polly: I was invited to go with classmates to see this as part of a friend's birthday celebration, otherwise I probably never would have watched it. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, with less of that chick-flicky "humor" that romantic comedies overflow with these days, and more of the stuff that can actually make me chuckle. Even so, it's still not great, but there are worse movies you could see if you're bored on the weekends.
House of Sand and Fog: Holy Shitaki Mushrooms! This film is amazing. What begins as a rather simply story gradually becomes more and more involving until the rather bleak ending. I would say Ben Kingsley deserved the Oscar, but then again, I haven't seen Mystic River. The presentation, acting, and technicalities are near perfect. It starts off rather slow, but the pace builds up until by the end you'll be on the edge of your seat.
Completely random topic: I wish I had more things to do on the weekends. I haven't written any short stories in months, and I procrastinate way too much ("I'll write some tomorrow."). Something tells me I should get serious about it again. But right now I'm not really interested in short stories; perhaps a short screenplay? I've never done one of those, and it would be a challenge. I have extremely vague ideas tumbling about in my head, different scenes that are completely unrelated to each other - I really need to figure out how it all connects. Maybe I'll be able to work out all the wrinkles and at least put a paragraph or two down in a few weeks. No matter what, I figure the chances of me being the next Robert Rodriguez are about 1 in 2,291,534,019. Even if I finish a script, I don't have any equipment, actors, or software to make an amateur movie with. And from what I have done in regards to filmmaking has shown me that sometimes things can be a real pain...
And look, now I have a new site to add to my list of "Pointless Web Sites That Waste Internet Space But Yet Are Hilarious", right beneath Zombo.com. Behold. I have a friend who saw that and became hypnotized for 10 minutes. He just couldn't stop looking. Just a fair warning; don't blame me if you click that and end up in the loony bin raving about how giant mushrooms are about to take over the world.
And believe me, that annoying music will get stuck in your head.
That's it for today. Maybe I'll find time to update this weekend. That is, when I'm not busy with the SAT and recovering from exams...
Anyway, tomorrow I begin the big exams that we have at the end of every year (not the IB). I probably haven't studied enough (I place part of the blame on essays and a stupid PE project I had to do recently - don't they realize we need time to study in order to do well?) but I'll probably do decently enough.
In other news: I finally updated my website again with the review/analysis of The Passion of the Christ. It's my longest and probably most in-depth review yet, and beware of many spoilers. I have no idea when I'll have time to write another review, but here are my thoughts on two movies I've seen recently.
Along Came Polly: I was invited to go with classmates to see this as part of a friend's birthday celebration, otherwise I probably never would have watched it. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, with less of that chick-flicky "humor" that romantic comedies overflow with these days, and more of the stuff that can actually make me chuckle. Even so, it's still not great, but there are worse movies you could see if you're bored on the weekends.
House of Sand and Fog: Holy Shitaki Mushrooms! This film is amazing. What begins as a rather simply story gradually becomes more and more involving until the rather bleak ending. I would say Ben Kingsley deserved the Oscar, but then again, I haven't seen Mystic River. The presentation, acting, and technicalities are near perfect. It starts off rather slow, but the pace builds up until by the end you'll be on the edge of your seat.
Completely random topic: I wish I had more things to do on the weekends. I haven't written any short stories in months, and I procrastinate way too much ("I'll write some tomorrow."). Something tells me I should get serious about it again. But right now I'm not really interested in short stories; perhaps a short screenplay? I've never done one of those, and it would be a challenge. I have extremely vague ideas tumbling about in my head, different scenes that are completely unrelated to each other - I really need to figure out how it all connects. Maybe I'll be able to work out all the wrinkles and at least put a paragraph or two down in a few weeks. No matter what, I figure the chances of me being the next Robert Rodriguez are about 1 in 2,291,534,019. Even if I finish a script, I don't have any equipment, actors, or software to make an amateur movie with. And from what I have done in regards to filmmaking has shown me that sometimes things can be a real pain...
And look, now I have a new site to add to my list of "Pointless Web Sites That Waste Internet Space But Yet Are Hilarious", right beneath Zombo.com. Behold. I have a friend who saw that and became hypnotized for 10 minutes. He just couldn't stop looking. Just a fair warning; don't blame me if you click that and end up in the loony bin raving about how giant mushrooms are about to take over the world.
And believe me, that annoying music will get stuck in your head.
That's it for today. Maybe I'll find time to update this weekend. That is, when I'm not busy with the SAT and recovering from exams...
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 4/21/2004 09:26:00 PM 
