“A zebra does not change its spots.”
- Al Gore
Monthly Archive for December, 2005
How to describe this movie… weird, very weird. Trevor Reznik, played by Christian Bale, is a man that is whithering away, literally. He hasn’t slept in a year and his body is a shell of its former self. He keeps losing weight and losing the battle against sanity. He nods off for seconds at a time, but never more than that. His co-workers suspect that he’s on drugs, and his behavior at times would lead anyone to agree with them.
The film gets going when Reznik, a drill press operator at a machine shop, meets Ivan (played by John Sharian), a bald, beefy redneck with toes surgically grafted onto one of his hands, who will remind you off Marlon Brando’s character from Apocalypse Now. Ivan claims he’s just been hired, but nobody seems to know anything about him. His red car certainly stands out, as it’s practically the only object in the movie that isn’t gray. Ivan seems amiable enough at first, but the next day at the office, he manages to distract Reznik to the point of making him cause a major accident, amputating the arm of a co-worker played by Michael Ironside. Problem for Reznik is that no one else saw Ivan, or even believes he exists. Could this be a Tyler Durden situation all over again? If you remember Edward Norton’s major affliction in Fight Club was also insomnia.
Well one thing leads to another and Reznik gets crazier and crazier, with Ivan there every step of the way, until all the pieces come together to show you that Reznik is indeed crazy. You can tell that my heart isn’t into writing a lengthy review and it’s because I just don’t care for it. Christian Bale was great in the role, having lost a lot of weight for this movie, but it just didn’t do it for me. I found it to move very slowly and at times I was looking for something to do. If I had to give it a rating I’d give it 2 out of 5, simply because of Bale’s performance.
Want to know how your website will look on Apple’s Safari browser? Well the fine people at Snugtech.com are offering a sweet service called SafariTest that will let you do just that. All you need to do is enter a url into their form, select the width you want to view it in, and the type of image file you would like and it returns an image of the website rendered on Safari.
It’s a great little tool for those web designers don’t have a Mac but want to see what their site will look like on a Mac, under the assumption that the user is using Safari that is.
If you’re familiar with this blog at all you’d know that I’m a fan of comics and especially of Frank Miller. Well, we’ve got another Miller movie in the pipeline, this time it’s based off of his mini-series 300.
300 is a retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, drawing a line in the sand for democracy. The film comes to life by combining live action with virtual backgrounds that capture Millers distinct vision. Luckily we’re able to see some of what the filmmakers had in mind.
If you go over to the 300 Official Movie site you’ll get a glimpse at what they’re trying to achieve. Or you can take a look at the two pics below. The top is an actual frame from the comic book and the picture below is what it will look like in the movie. Almost Sin City-esque if you will.
The picture below shows another frame from the comic…
Personally, I think it’s going to rock. It looks like they’re really striving to get Millers work on screen the way it’s supposed to be. Word is that the script is almost exactly as it is in the comic as well so you know it’ll be a good story.
Now this is weird, but….
A cinnamon bun that bears a striking likeness to late Catholic nun Mother Teresa was stolen from a US coffeehouse on Christmas Day.
The owner arrived to find that the famous flaky pastry had vanished from the shop in Nashville, Tennessee.
Bob Bernstein said he thought the culprit was angry over the display.
The “Nun Bun” has drawn tourists since it was preserved and put in a glass case at the shop, where it was discovered by a customer in 1996.
The bun became international news following the find in the folds of its pastry.
The Bongo Java coffee shop sold T-shirts, prayer cards and mugs with the bun’s image until Mother Teresa wrote a letter asking the sales be stopped, before her death in 1997.
Mr Bernstein said the thief “went right for the bun”, ignoring cash lying nearby.
“Unfortunately I think it’s somebody who wanted to take it to destroy it,” he said.
