Some of the worst trailers for never-heard-of click-flicks on this disc.

…And they just keep coming.

…And finally the menu, and pressing play.

This is starting just like Beauty & The Beast — Disney-sounding “French” accordion score, with people speaking french, nuns walking in the town square.

Streep’s Child impression just makes you smile.

Butter! In the good way, not the near-gross Paula Dean way.

And hey, there’s Chloe from 24, poaching eggs. She’s kinda just one degree, one flavor.

“Madame, s’il vous plait, you must hold szee knife like sziss.”

And there’s the requisite chick-flick fight. I’m not worried. They’ll work it out and live happily ever after.

Bon apetit, i guess. This movie is wrapping up, but i don’t feel satisfied.

I really like the idea of cooking — it appeals to the scientist, artist, and foodie in me. And know my way around a kitchen. But i don’t really have much time logged making real food, and can’t say i have any recipies memorized or any dishes i know how to make. A challenge like Julie’s would be fun, but i can’t realistically imagine being able to do it. Though i did get Alton Brown’s Good Eats book for Christmas, and he’s my Julia — my cooking idol.

Figured i’d start a post to keep notes, links, photos, videos, etc. of this over-adjectified snow storm hitting the DC area this weekend. Live stuff over @miahz.

No power outtage here so far. The utilities in this area are pretty much all buried, so they wouldn’t be affected by falling trees or being weighted down by snow and ice.

Monday, 08:50: Aerial photos of DC covered in snow from the US Park Police [via @myfoxdc].

Saturday, 08:09: I’d guess about 16–18″ and still coming down.

@miahz

Definitely stuck. But i got half a tank of gas and 6lbs of gummi bears. #snoWTF

Friday, 18:26: @miahz

Dale blvd west from I-95 is backed up cuz people like me can’t get up the hill.

Friday, 17:32: Driving in the snow, testing out my car headrest camera mount.

Around 5pm when it started to get darker and colder, things began to go as all the predictions were saying.

This guy got a little too excited:

via @Cizauskas

Finally, a hashtag i can dig:

#snowtoriousbig

Spotted on that VisibleTweets site.

Friday, 15:44: By Friday afternoon, it had been snowing all day, but nothing was sticking and there was no real accumulation. @miahz

All you school kids got a freebie today. You’ll have to pay that back at the end of the year when the weather’s nice.

Friday, 13:40: This “kinetic typography” visualization of storm-related tweets would make a cool screensaver: VisibleTweets [via @danr].

Friday, 12:53: Snow plows were on-deck on Cardinal Dr in Woodbridge.

Friday, 12:33: @miahz

Though, to be fair, nothing’s sticking yet. #snowmageddon #ihatethattag

Friday, 12:28: @miahz

No matter how you slice it this is going to be historical snowfall for DMV http://bit.ly/bXoK73

I think i woke up and peeked out the window around 7am and it wasn’t snowing yet. But i think it was coming down steady from about 9am.

Friday, 01:14: @miahz

In all likelihood it’ll be snowing the next time i look out my window.

Thursday, 20:53: The Potomac Mills Wegmans parking was full from shoppers stocking up before the storm hits.

I’ve blitzed through all six seasons of Entourage in about three weeks. What a great show. Can’t wait until next season, not sure anything else will satisfy my fantasy TV cravings.

HBO’s site lists the songs used in each episode, which is great, because a lot of the flavor comes from the musical variety, and they don’t list songs in the credits at the end of the show.

I’ve been wondering since early-on why Kevin Connolly has top billing in the show’s intro credits for his Eric Murphy character, when on the surface it seems to be about the entourage revolving around movie star Vincent Chase played by Adrian Grenier. Haven’t been able to find any solid info on that. I think i’d say E’s my favorite character, but most people seem to go gaga for Jeremy Piven’s ruthless agent extraordinaire Ari Gold.

It seems i’ve watched The Pianist before, but i didn’t really remember any of it. I must have dozed off the first time, because after the first 20 minutes or so, everything looked familiar even though it felt like i had never seen it before, and i would slowly remember a few plot points.

Didn’t Brody win Best Actor for this? I guess he was pretty good, but didn’t seem like he did much. Maybe that’s why it was good.

I’m told i look like Adrien Brody, and watching this makes me wonder if i’d be any good at acting.

After only 2 minutes a new car was hot-wired, which is not possible, and has never been possible with modern cars since before season one of 24. The street footage was way blown-out — how did they screw up so many shots that badly? Everyone’s using blatantly Sprint-branded phones. An overhead drone surveillance photo became a shot of a city street angled from a building that was then enhanced to reveal a serial number from the tag on a taxi. The hand scanner screens are pre-recorded animations that don’t match the actual hands placed on them. And the computers and screens in CTU still beep and boop.

Still waiting for a crawl-through-the-ventilation-ducts scene. I started watching the show in the middle of season 3 because it had the balls to have Jack execute an innocent man. But all this other crap they keep pulling is getting old.

By the way, if you watched all four hours of the premiere on Sunday and Monday nights on live television, you sat through 1 full hour of commercials.

I was right. I can count the number of times i went to the theater last year on my fingers. As far as i can remember, these are the ten movies i went to see in 2009.

1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. Taken
3. Sin Nombre
4. Star Trek (IMAX)
5. UP (3D)
6. Funny People
7. District 9
8. 9
9. Fantastic Mr. Fox
10. Avatar (IMAX 3D)

Slumdog won Best Picture. Liam Neeson was surprisingly entertaining as a middle-aged Jason Bourne in Taken. Sin Nombre was a gritty train ride. Star Trek was probably the most incredible sci-fi flick to date. Up was the first movie i’ve ever seen in 3D (with glasses). Pixar packs so much story and emotion into into their little montages, without using any words. Funny People had jokes. Girls didn’t like District 9. 9 was an amazing vision with an slightly less-than-satisfying conclusion. Mr. Fox was a quirky tale saved by an appropriately quirky soundtrack. And… Avatar. I didn’t like it; the chrome finish wasn’t enough to cover up a rusty script.

With countless copies of the DVD around the house, i’m finally sitting down to watch We Were Soldiers. I’m kinda live-blogging this as it plays.

This movie is pretty much all musical montage. Noticing a trend in war movies: the leader that makes bad calls right off the top then the lower-ranking soldier steps up and shines. I guess war is war. It’s also hard not to compare everything to the yardstick of war on film, Band of Brothers. There’s almost too many familiar faces in We Were Soldiers that bring with them the baggage of previous rolls — a problem that Band of Brothers didn’t have to deal much with (aside from Ross).

So, i’m having trouble believing the radioman on the ground was talking directly to the air support pilots. …And that’s a degloving. Crucial.

The dynamic range on this soundtrack is hard to keep up with. Lots of quiet whispering right next to huge explosions and gunfire. Thumb staying on the volume button.

…Aaaand a slo-mo battle scene. I’m becoming too picky about my war flick cinematography. Oh yeah, this doesn’t look like Vietnamese jungles, more like the hills of California, but i’ve never been to Vietnam.

So how about that AK-47? Greatest gun of all time? If you’re a bad guy.

Roll credits. Some memorable scenes — can’t get over the closeness of the combat. Modern war seems like such a remote affair — scopes and satellites and unmanned vehicles. Bayonets and fists and grenades: the side of war i’d hope to never experience if i were a soldier.

So i had seen a preview for this probably over a year ago, then i guess i came out in limited release over the summer, but i missed it. It happened to be playing again at a local theater, so i got some friends to check it out with me.

One of the most intense and realistic depictions of modern war — certainly in the Middle East in the past 10 years. Hurt Locker managed to keep me entertained on the edge of my seat without a lot of the typical Hollywood war film fluff. These aren’t American cowboys running around in the desert shooting everything that moves. They’re real, young men doing their jobs. There are rules. And consequences. That’s the part they know. But they happen to be working and living in a foreign land with foreign people and they don’t know who is friendly or not. It was such a tangible portrayal of the anxiety and emotions and confusion that precipitate in these circumstances.

Seeing the trailer i had wondered what kind of story there could be about a bomb squad in Iraq. Are they just defusing bombs and running away from explosions in slow motion the whole time? Well… kinda. My favorite scene had our heroes ambushed while out on patrol leading to the best and most accurate (in my amateur opinion) sniper scene in film. Movie snipers are always so glamorous and faultless, when it’s really laying in the dirt and discipline and trial and error.

But the real conflict is between these three EOD troops, trying to understand and get along with each other, while getting the job done and staying alive so they can get home.

Evangeline Lily is in this movie like Shia LeBeouf is in I, Robot. And i wouldn’t have recognized the actor playing “Doc” Cambridge if i hadn’t recently finished season one of Dexter. There were a few other faces i recognized, like Guy Pierce from Memento, and David Morse from The Rock and Dancer in the Dark. Sanborn was Papa Doc in 8 Mile.

A few spectacular high-speed shots of explosions, a well-photographed sniper battle, and snappy editing break up the drab monotony of the day-to-day in Iraq. Just wish i could have seen and heard it in a newer theater — Shirlington AMC is a tad aged, with a small screen and floor seats that make you look up at the screen.

Update:
The Hurt Locker is out on DVD, Blu-ray, and on-demand this Tuesday, January 12th.

“Enhance” the security footage. Something big falls apart. Same theme song as the 97 version. And Jack dies in the end. I mean Jake. #Avatar