Movie time

Yes, I'm lame. I still haven't seen Iron Man. I will.

What I am watching beside Battelstar Galactica and Lost is some stuff from Netflix.

I was The Golden Compass. 'meh' is about all I can say. The movie is based the first in a trilogy of books by Philip Pullman. The trilogy is called 'His Dark Materials' and the first book is 'Northern Lights'

Anyway, the story basically centers around a young girl who goes in search of some of her friends who have been snatched by 'Gobblers'. Basically, the Gobblers work for the church and are snatching the kids to perform experiments on them. See, in this world our 'souls' are external in the form of daemons. The daemons take the form of various animals and talk. Anyway, the church wants to separate people from their daemons because the source of the daemons, something called 'dust', is apparently a threat to their power.

Anyway, the movie centers mainly around her quest to find and rescue her buddies.

The Good:
The Armoured Bears. Picture a polar bear that talks and wears armor and kicks ass. Pretty well rendered CGI and jsut all around cool. I want one.
Chritopher Lee and Sam Elliot. Christopher Lee is always underused.
Sam Elliot was WAY underused considering the importance his character plays in the trilogy. He plays a citizen of the Republic of Texas. 'Duh'

The Bad:
Acting: It blew. The writers did a horrible job of scripting the books.
The movie ended early.

*SPOILER*

The girl rescues her friends and the other captured kids but the move ended there. There was a SIGNIFICANT bit of story afterwards that is kind of integral to the whole trilogy. It basically ties the entire story together. Way to go.

Overall impression: The movie was Daniel Craig's revenge (He's in it too). Sitting though this movie felt like I was sitting naked in a seatless chair getting my...well if you've seen Casino Royal you know what I mean...


I also watched King of Kong. No, it's not about a giant ape. This is a documentary about the world of virgins, er, competitive classic video games. Specifically, Donkey Kong.

Way back in the 80's Billy Mitchell, a jackass (and he is a COMPLETE JACKASS) not the WWII pilot who bombed Tokyo after Pearl Harbor, scored the world record in Donkey Kong. Basically, that moment defines this tool. Anyway, we get some back story on the whole things then we get introduced to a dude names Steve Wiebe (sp). This guy is a completely different sort of person from the rest of the crowd. He's an engineer working for Boeing who gets laid off the day he closed on his house. OUCH. He's married and has a couple of kids.

He's a normal guy who got dealt a shitty blow. Anyway, during his downtime he starts playing Donkey Kong in his garage and really really getting into it. He's a bit OCD and VERY competitive. You get this from interviews with his family and friends. Anyway, he eventually crushes the other guys high score. He video taped the whole thing so there would be a record of the feat. He then sends this tape into the 'Twin Galaxies' company which is a volunteer group of mega-virgins who basically took it upon themselves to referee these competitions and validate records, etc.
They are also quite clearly Billy Mitchell sycophants.

They basically find lame excuses to deny Steve his right to the record. The rest of documentary is Steve working hard to play head to head against Billy and prove himself. Billy "I'm a Kenny Loggins wanna-be" Mitchel dodges him at ever turn.

They never get to play head to head but what does happen is the Twin Galaxies and rest of the video game community realize what jerks they are and that Steve is a stand-up guy. They all apologize to Steve and welcome him into their community (Where I'm sure he'll never fit in since he's actually had sex with someone other than their hand).

The Good: Steve Wiebes daughter. She does quite get her dad's desire to get into the Guinness Book of World records. ("What's the big deal")
Steve Weibe's son: During the taping of his first record he comes into the garage yelling at his dad to "Wipe My Butt Dad!!' Stop Playing Donkeey KOOOOONG!!:' Major lollage.

The Bad: Billy Mitchel. Tool. 100% tool.
Really there wasn't anything bad in this movie. It was a well put together documentary and kept me interested all the way through.

Overall: Loved it. Make sure you stay for credits. They added followup information about Steve and Billy that is important.