A staggering 496 films have been released in 2003 and of the 74 I've watched, these are the top 10 of the year. Of course, as I finish watching the year's movies, this list as well as the worst list will be updated accordingly.

1. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - A triumphant end to one of the best trilogies ever made.
2. Finding Nemo - All you can ever hope for in an action adventure with the added bonus of great animation.
3. Lost in Translation - Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson masterfully show off their acting chops as they discover Japan with both hilarity and romanticism.
4. In America - The immigrant experience has never been so moving as this was.
5. Seabiscuit - Great performances from a great director document the grand horse named Seabiscuit.
6. Bend it Like Beckham - This soccer crowd-pleaser gives us both entertainment and lessons to learn in life.
7. Big Fish - Tim Burton's imagination runs wild with fantastic results.
8. Elephant - The most thought-provoking film of the year sets the stage for a discussion of how school shootings occur in the most innocent of places.
9 The Last Samurai - Love him or hate him, Tom Cruise turns in a decent performance as a Civil War soldier but Ken Watanabe's role as Katsumoto is the star of the show.
10. School of Rock - The funniest comedy of the year will have you dancing in the aisles with the music an aged rocker and school kids can make.

Of the films I have seen, these are the 10 best films of the year according to a composite ranking from 228 critics compiled by moviecitynews.com.

1. Lost in Translation
2. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
3. Mystic River
4. Finding Nemo
5. In America
6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
7. 21 Grams
8. Kill Bill: Volume 1
9. Cold Mountain
10. Elephant

Armed with the same list, these are the 5 best films I haven't seen yet, but probably will.

1. American Splendor
2. Capturing the Friedmans
3. City of God
4. The Station Agent
5. House of Sand and Fog

Of the 70 films I've watched this year, these 10 have been judged as the worst of the year by combining the spring, summer, and fall movie rankings and seeing who fell to the bottom. Of course, I haven't seen all the movies of this year just yet and some might fall the cracks to this list soon. The top 10 can be found tomorrow.

1. Gigli - I don't know what was worse: the awful dialogue (gobble, gobble) or pretty boy Ben Affleck trying to play a tough guy.
2. The Real Cancun - Was that really the real Cancun or some sick guy's wet dream?
3. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd - When the creators and the original stars want no part of this fiasco, that really tells you something.
4. Dreamcatcher - How could so many fine actors, and a fine author in Stephen King, been involved in such crap?
5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Like Sean Connery in the film, we're still waiting to be impressed.
6. Freddy vs. Jason - Typical slasher material leads into an awfully short "epic" battle.
7. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle - The thing makes no sense and only serves as eye candy, presumably enough to satisfy some people but not this one.
8. Alex and Emma - While Kate Hudson is a beautiful presence on-screen, someone needs to get her some better material.
9. Hollywood Homicide - The funny thing about this buddy-cop comedy was that the film was at its best when the duo was separated.
10. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde - Simply changing the scenery from the first one is not the way to make a sequel.

Of the films I have seen, these are the 10 worst films of the year according to a composite ranking from 67 critics compiled by moviecitynews.com.

1. Gigli
2. Bad Boys II
3. Dreamcatcher
4. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
5. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
6. The Matrix: Revolutions
7. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde
8. Alex and Emma
9. The Hulk
10. Daredevil

Armed with the same list, these are the 5 worst films I haven't seen yet and probably never will.

1. The Cat in the Hat
2. Boat Trip
3. From Justin to Kelly
4. Beyond Borders
5. The Life of David Gale

During the lull that is the days between Christmas and New Year's Day, I hope you've had a fullfilling holiday. Receiving gifts and seeing long-lost friends like Ak and Steve and Jimmy has been the story of these holidays for me. For my birthday, I even got a cell phone. I can't even believe it. I swore I'd never get such a thing since I'm broke and I don't want people to get a hold me whenever they wanted. Since this phone is being paid for, then I don't mind if they can track me, I'll just turn the damn thing off when I want to. Don't worry, I'll try to leave it on when I can.

But amidst the DVD's and money I got for Christmas was the noteworthy gift from my friends Alex and Hai who always want to give such a, let's say, thoughtful gift. Before, I've gotten a piggy bank and a piggy pillow (erm, sleeping buddy like the tag writes) and now they've turned away from the pig theme and seeing as how I'm a math major, given me slippers of the Count from Sesame Street. And like I promised, I took a picture of the slippers, with a cameo appearance from the piggy.

As New Year's approaches, I'm working on the annual best/worst lists for movies in 2003. Contrary to popular belief, I've only seen 68 movies so far with a few more remaining until Oscar nominations roll out at the end of next month. The lists should be published within the next couple of days.

Big Fish
Edward Bloom (Old: Albert Finney, Young: Ewan McGregor) led a remarkable life. But you wouldn't know it if you talked to his son, Will (Billy Crudup). To him, the stories his father told blur the line between reality and fiction and he is confused on what is true and what is false. His father's failure to be up front about his past soured the relationship between the two, at one point not talking to each other for a few years. Soon, Edward is dying, a combination of old age and cancer, and Will tries one last time to communicate with his father and, with his journalistic mentality, searches for the truth and patiently waits for the real Edward Bloom to please stand up.

Director Tim Burton has always been a genius in using the screen to transform his imagination to reality for all the world to see. With the free-wheeling script he's been given, Burton runs wild with enthusiasm to create wondrous stories out of Edward Bloom, a man whose stories are truly unbelievable, but, with its scenes re-created, making us believe as well. Wondering about whether the events Edward goes through are true or what his motives were shouldn't be really important; the question to ask when listening to Edward is whether he can capture your attention. Like Will's pregnant wife midway through the movie when she becomes enchanted with Edward's storytelling, particularly telling how he wooed his wife-to-be, which by the way showed off the beauty of Alison Lohman, I became mesmerized by the stories Burton told which resulted in a very enjoyable film to watch. 3.5 stars

Paycheck
Not wanting to be known as an amnesiac man, Matt Damon passed on this role as a man who loses his memory to his friend Ben Affleck. And in his hands, you just know you're in for something action-packed. Whether that means the explosions of Armageddon or the bomb that was Gigli, we just have to wait to find out. In here, Affleck plays Michael Jennings, a reverse engineer who makes existing products better. The kicker is once he's done, his memory is erased from the time he started the project to protect the company's secrets. Once he finished his latest project, Jennings is contacted by his friend Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) who wants to recruit him for a long-term assignment. With a stock option payoff, Jennings can't refuse. He succeeds in inventing a device that sees into the future, but with his memory wiped out, he's helpless as he finds his options forfeited and the FBI after him. Only 20 clues sent to him figure to be the only way to get out of this mess and prevent a catastrophe of worldwide proportions.

If you don't think about the movie's obvious plot holes, you're in for a real treat as director John Woo keeps the action high and Affleck gives a credible performance. (However, Woo's traditional dove should have been integrated into the movie a little better instead of flying out of thin air.) Uma Thurman also does well playing Affleck's love interest while kicking some butt. But as any science-fiction fan will tell you, messing around with a story about seeing into the future can be a tricky thing. The most important question raised is if you have 20 items that Jennings has provided, how do you know using one item won't render the other 19 useless? A device that only sees into the future can presumably be only based on current events, not future variables that can be changed at will. So say once he uses the glasses, how do you know he would need the paper clip in the next scene? A whole new future would have been created, right? Geez, I guess they hadn't thought this one through either. But the pacing is quick, except for its less-than-stellar ending which drags, especially the bullet, and I did enjoy how all the items were accounted for in Jennings' little quest to save the world. On a side note, it was funny to see how all the men either were balding or had my haircut, especially Eckhart's. 2.5 stars

The Cooler
Ever wonder what causes the flunctuations between good luck and bad? Well, here's one: the cooler, a man filled with so much bad luck, he spreads it to all who is around him. In this case, Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) is the best among the worst. He's on the payroll of Shelly Kaplow's (Alec Baldwin) Shangri-La Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas as the cooler in order to cool off the hot winning streaks in the casino. Kaplow is an old timer when it comes to gambling, believing in some of the oldest tricks in the book such as the cooler and a casino without the glitz and wholesomeness of the new Vegas being built outside for the families. Profits are coming in, but the owners like the ideas of a new consultant (Ron Livingston) to make the Shangri-La more profitable and are trying to convince Kaplow, albeit unsuccessfully. Lootz meanwhile has caught the eye of Natalie (Maria Bello), a young waitress who grows attached to Lootz and it seems his luck begins to change. The effects he has over people now have the opposite effect. Kaplow soon begins to see his little empire crumble and begins to take steps to rebuild and the first thing to do is to put Lootz back into his bad luck streak.

While the film gets stuck in the usual cliches most gambling movies have been known for, you can't help but root for Bernie as his luck begins to get good and he works to stay there. This is helped along by the performance that Macy gives, one of his best to date in his storied career. Baldwin also gives in a good, dark performance for most of the movie but by the time he's done, his acting becomes a bit overdone. You seem to get a little bit of everything in this picture from the joys of winning to the lows of losing, from the euphoria of getting on a winning streak to the tough handling of cheaters wanting to take a few bucks. But in the end, seemingly all, for better or worse, craps out. 3 stars

It was a strong performance by the Golden Bears in a see-saw game that saw many lead changes and plenty of excitement. In the end, Cal won 52-49 over the Virginia Tech Hokies in the Insight Bowl. Beforehand, we knew it would be high-scoring and fairly close, but we didn't know how dominating each offense would be. Virginia Tech ran and passed with ease in the first half while Cal in the second half short played the Hokies defense to death while once in a while hitting them large with an opportune play. It was 7-0 Cal, then 28-14 VT, then 42-28 Cal. VT eventually tied it up at 49 with a special teams letdown on the part of Cal with a punt return TD from VT's Hall. But quarterback Aaron Rodgers, poised and brimming with confidence, led the team down to the 18 yard line of VT and set up Tyler Frederickson for the game-winning field goal. Great game by all.

On this day before Christmas, I wish you and yours a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, and in general, happy holidays.

I still have to buy one more present and if you're in need to get one too, I have one suggestion. Browsing through Toys' R Us recently, I stumbled upon the best DVD cover there is.

Surf Ninjas is the story of Ernie Reyes, Jr. who discovers he is royalty and tries to woo a teenage princess, played by a young Kelly Hu. But for some reason, with the help of Rob Schneider, Reyes must defeat ninjas led by Leslie Nielsen. And it all involves surfing! That's as great as Sylvester Stallone's touching tale of child custody set against the backdrop of arm wrestling.

Again, the cover tells the whole thing. It's hilarious. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't seen such quality films as this one. Was this up for Oscars?



Contributing to the Christmas spirit, it's front page news on Yahoo! that a reindeer tackled a new reporter in Alaska.

Poor lady. Too bad reindeer don't fly. It leads into a description of the job Santa does on Christmas night from the math/physics point of view. It's really old and distributed by many now. Some people have tried to disprove this, but come on, it's a fun read anyway.

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

On this the date of my birth, I thought it'd be a good idea to see who was born on this day. Being just one day out of 366 in a year, I can't expect every famous person to be born on this day, but it seems they stayed away from December 20.

In historical terms, the most important it seems was Harvey Firestone. Firestone started the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1900 and was friends with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. The doctor who aided John Wilkes Booth after assassinating Abraham Lincoln was also born on this day.

Perusing the list of B-movie stars and porn actresses who share my birthday on IMDB, I came upon the name Dick Wolf as the most famous celebrity who was born today. I know you've never heard of him, but trust me, you know his work. Ever seen Law and Order? Yeah, he made that. And those distractions SVU and Criminal Intent. Really, there's too much of them going on at one time, many heads will explode if they watch all of them. He also created the new Dragnet, produced Miami Vice, and wrote Hill Street Blues.

Other actors include John Spencer, the chief of staff on one of the greatest shows ever made before being ruined this season "The West Wing," Michael Badalucco, fat Jimbo on "The Practice," and Nicole DeBoer who didn't do the character Dax much justice on Deep Space Nine. There were many more names, but I don't think they could be described as famous, celebrities, or famous celebrities.

The only other database I could find on the subject was a sports one and while such illuminaries as Rich Gannon, Aubrey Huff and Cory Stillman are mentioned, the name Jan Caloun stands out as a former Sharks player. He scored 4 goals on his first 4 shots in his career, a remarkable feat.

On this day in history, the Louisiana Purchase became official, the U.S. invaded Panama and captured Manuel Noriega (I actually remember that), Ho Chi Minh began to fight the French, and South Carolina seceded from the Union before the Civil War.

So as this list can tell you, my actual birthday isn't lame, but the date of my birthday is. Hopefully, your birthdays are much better than this one. At least a lot more people have December birthdays, like Jon (earlier in the month) and Alex (later in the month). Coincidentally, they seem to be the only ones reading this crap. So, umm, happy birthday to you both.

Thanks to all who have wished me a happy birthday, almost all suspiciously without gifts.

Pieces of April
Yes, it's a little late to be talking about this, but this movie is about Thanksgiving dinner. Katie Holmes is April, a rebellious girl living in the Big Apple. With ties to her family severed, she thought the holiday of thankfulness would be a good time to see her family and let them see the new life she leads. The matriarch of the family, Joy (Patricia Clarkson), is suffering from breast cancer while her husband (Oliver Platt) and other children seem to suffer along with her. All of them are suspicious of April's invitation and try to find reasons not to go, but if Joy, as sick as she is, can wake up early and sit in the car and wait, by golly they're gonna go. Thanksgiving arrives and with a little jump-start from her boyfriend Bobby (Derek Luke), April gets started on dinner. But a broken oven and last minute changes to the menu threaten a Thanksgiving where quite possibly, no one will show up at all.

This is a very top-notch movie. It's, well, a joy to watch with lots of funny moments as April prepares the dinner and her family try to get out of it, or at the very least, make up lines to describe how good the food will be. You can tell April is in the act of growing up further with her experiences with neighbors from different walks of life, but it's hard to tell if April's life was truly affected by this day. She smiles for the camera, but what's to stop her from not talking to her mom for a long period of time again? At 75 minutes, the film is awfully short and could have focused more on explaining what caused April so estranged from her family. Instead, we get some storyline involving Bobby getting new clothes. Okay, he gets beat up but his minutes on-screen seem to only serve the purpose of scaring the family once they arrive. By the end, the film is ultimately satisfying with a family that really needed something to be thankful for get it on the right day. 3 stars

I took a final today and all I got was a lot of struggling and a huge headache. I don't think watching Lord of the Rings at midnite was such a good idea after all. Sure, it was a great movie, but I didn't get back until 5 am and I was on such a buzz, I wasn't down until seven. This after getting 3 hours of sleep the night before, and now another 4 hours Tuesday night. That was enough to get me through office hours for my last final on Thursday and Wednesday night would be full-blown cramming.

So I got home at 5, made dinner, checked my email, and started to read the material. As expected, I was fast asleep at I believe 8 pm. Not as expected was how long I'd sleep. I woke up at 8 am. Savvy math majors like myself can figure that was 12 hours of sleep. It led up to more cramming and a final at 1230. It wasn't too bad, but I didn't have a clue how to do part of the major essay question and there's the normal self-doubt one has after a test. And now I write to you, major headache killing my head and no Tylenol in sight.

I get home tomorrow. On Saturday, my age makes a blackjack. I don't feel that old, but I guess I certainly look the part. Thinning, greased-up hair while wearing polo shirts, and whatnot.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The third film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy finds the main characters in the same situations. Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) are ever closer to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. However, their guide Gollum along with his alter-ego Smeagol have other ideas for the duo. Meanwhile, Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd), fresh off their victory with the trees, are joined by Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), and the forces of Rodan. In a crystal ball containing the eye of Sauron, Pippin sees a vision of a burning Gondor. Gandalf afterwards decides to bring him along to Minas Tirith in Gondor to see what he could do to help. When there, they find an increasingly mad leader in Denethor still dealing with the loss of his favorite son Boromir, much to the chagrin of the other son Faramir. Gandalf soon begins to take control of preparations to fortify Minas Tirith and the men of Rodan begin to mass and march to Gondor.

Seeing that their force was small compared to the army of Orcs that lay ahead, Aragorn seeks the help of the dead, who will only be led by the king of men. They agree and all converge on Gondor. Hearing word that Frodo and Sam were close to completing their mission, our male leaders lead an assault on the Black Gates to distract the eye and the Orc forces to hopefully allow the hobbits to pass through the valleys and up the mountain and into the fire.

The other bally-hooed trilogy of the year was The Matrix, which ended by leaving fans awfully disappointed. In contrast, Lord of the Rings will also leave fans wanting for more, but only after sitting through the best movie of the trilogy and quite possibly the best movie of the year. Never before has a simple tale between good and evil been so exquisitely told with such epic storytelling and exhaustive detail. Its story, as long as it takes to be told, moves along with authority and passion as we learn the fates of our main characters. With so many to keep track of, it's amazing it strikes the balance that it did. But two characters stand out from the crowd: Gandalf, who refrains from using his powers as a white wizard to lead the forces of Gondor as a military wizard, and Sam, whose loyalty is tested to the extreme and never fails his friend Frodo on his trek to destroy the ring.

The battle is more amazing this time around with 3 battles to keep track of. The city of Minas Tirith was very pretty to look at, but to see it destroyed stone by stone was also an amazing achievement. The battles also take numerous cues from other famous cinematic battles including Aragorn's William Wallace speech complete with a moving horse and the takedown moves needed to stop the elephants were similar to the takedown moves of the walkers in the last two Star Wars films.

Director Peter Jackson still has a problem of his lingering camera, staying with shots that could easily be edited out and reduce the 200 minutes of airtime this movie gets. Case in point: on Gandalf's ride to Minas Tirith, a 7-level complex, we spend more than a minute watching Gandalf ride up the complex. OK! It's a big place! We get it! But this problem, and Jackson's obligation to detail that created the 6 or 7 endings for the movie are very minor points to a concluding chapter that stands as the best in a trilogy that stands among the great trilogies of all-time. 4 stars

Stuck on You
The Farrelly Brothers, Peter and Bobby, were on their way to becoming one of the best comedy teams ever. They made "There's Something About Mary" and "Dumb and Dumber" plus they directed "Kingpin". Then there was dud after dud after dud. "Outside Providence", "Me, Myself, and Irene", "Shallow Hal" (okay, but nothing amazing), and "Osmosis Jones". The Farrellys probably hoped "Stuck On You" would mark their triumphant return, but alas, no.

The film stars Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins Bob and Walt. Successive burger joint owners, Bob and Walt were the talk of the town of Martha's Vineyard. But Walt has dreams of becoming an actor and convinces Bob to make the trek to Los Angeles to see if he can make it big. It was also an excellent time to meet Bob's penpal, May, who doesn't know about their condition. After moving in to a shady apartment and meeting a neighbor, namely Eva Mendes, they soon try to get to as many auditions as they can but are shut out. At the same time, Cher herself is trying to get out of a TV pilot and figures the only way to do it is to get Walt in as the star. She figures there's no way the network will let a conjoined twin be the star. But they do and it's a big success. With their diverging needs and wants, Walt figures it's time to separate, something Bob has been reluctant to do since it would harm Walt. But it seems Walt won't take no for an answer.

The movie is humorous but results in very few belly laughs, something the classic three had plenty of. By highlighting the condition of siamese twins, the jokes make it seem like we're laughing at them instead of with them, making it look mean instead of funny. However, Damon and Kinnear show excellent comedic chemistry together. Their timing is impeccable; ha, like their twins or something. If only they had better material to work with, it would have been even better. 1.5 stars

Mystic River
Jimmy, Sean, and Dave were three Boston boys who did everything together. Yet when Dave was kidnapped and molested for a period of several days. Things were never the same after that. Sure, they lived in the same area but they never did get around to seeing each other as often as they once did. They each went on to lead different lives. Jimmy (Sean Penn) runs a small grocery store and has three daughters, his oldest, Katie, from a previous marriage. Sean (Kevin Bacon) is in the midst of a separation and is a homicide detective. Dave (Tim Robbins) became a handyman and has a son. Their lives became closely intertwined once again when Katie is reported missing and later found dead in a park. Sean becomes the lead investigator and is partnered with Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne). The wild-card here is Dave who last saw Katie in a bar and later in the night, showed up at home with a knife wound and blood on his hands.

The film is masterfully directed by Clint Eastwood who shows all the experience and appreciation to detail one can show with a number of award-winning films under his belt. But like any mystery, the story gets interesting when there are clues to quench our thirst to find the truth. And for a time in the beginning, clues are found few and far between, leaving the storytelling stuck in neutral as everyone gives their best sob performances. It isn't until all signs point to Dave when the story's true brilliance and conflict comes to light and presents us with a struggle of emotion. That being said, Robbins probably gives the best performance of the movie, balancing a cold demeanor with the potential truths he is hiding. Penn also gives a quality performance, but it's not something that he hasn't done before; same with Bacon. Underused in the film are the wives as they are barely seen; the exception being Marcia Gay Harden who does her best dealing with Dave through her facial expressions. It all ends poignantly, leaving you guessing what happens next. 3 stars

In breaking news sure to disappoint Jon, the Orioles have lured Miguel Tejada away from the A's with a 6-year $72 million contract. Talented he is, but probably not worth this much, no? With the prospect of signing Vladimir Guerrero and a star catcher (Ivan Rodriguez or Javy Lopez), the Orioles will be about 20 guys away from fielding a decent team to compete.

Meanwhile, the A's have lost Tejada and closer Keith Foulke to other teams with only high-priced but limited talent free agents and inexperienced minor leaguers left to fill their spots. The Giants are in the same boat, losing Rich Aurilia, Benito Santiago, and Tim Worrell while their only prized pickup is rumored to be...Darren Oliver? Whew, this looks bad.

Saddam Hussein proved not to be as elusive as Bin Laden has been as Hussein has been captured after eight months of hiding. What a great day this must be for Americans, Iraqis, and the world. I don't know about you, but if I was dictator of a fairly large country, rich beyond my wildest dreams, yielding some major weapons (nuclear? chemical? biological? uhh, no comment), yet forcibly taken out of power by the most powerful country in the world, I would not stay in that country. Yet, that's where they found Hussein, right near his hometown too, sure, in a tunnel and with a fairly long beard. Judging by the picture, he may look old, but he looks healthy (he was smiling in the tape!) and all those news reports that he had plastic surgery were completely false. See, without an open media in Iraq, he couldn't get an Extreme Makeover, or at a lower level, not even a makeover with a queer eye.

Though most likely, Saddam would have executed the guy with a queer eye before allowing him to do anything.

Politically, it's a boon for President Bush, up for re-election in ten and a half short months. His administration has been getting dogged by doubts that the military can handle the escalating situation in Iraq, the rising death toll, the money being invested, the exclusive contracts to Halliburton and others, etc. This news should quiet the critics for at least a little while, especially his Democratic rivals, where this is their only issue they can effectively fight President Bush in the face of an improving economy. Sure, they could talk about the environment, and the new Medicare plan, and all those tax cuts, but the two major issues facing the country is the economy and Iraq. That being said, unemployment is dropping, albeit SLOWLY, GDP growth is lightning fast, Iraq is supposedly on its way to self-government according to its timetable, and the insurgents don't have a leader to look up to. Saddam has been captured. Now Bush must be dying to see what message his rivals will approve of next.

I'm coming to you live from the Doe Library as finals week has begun in earnest. Lucky or unlucky me, as the case maybe, I've got finals in the first group, the last group, and the one on Saturday. As a result, the first one was this morning, a deceptively easy one if I may say so. Deceptive since the professor's exams have always been easy but the class always seems to stumble on it.

It's been awhile since my last post that was non-movie related. But honestly, not much has happened since then.

I went to two new-age Asian restaurants. Those Americans trying to run Asian restaurants are the weirdest bunch. We heard they had decent food, so we decided to try it out. The first was P.F. Chang's. It's a Chinese bistro. The first thing that sticks out is the supposedly authentic decor, with statues of Chinese soldiers and lots of artwork. Too bad the waitress was not the same. Her first mistake was not noticing that we were Asian to begin with. Through her talk, you can tell she incorrectly assumed that we've never been to a Chinese restaurant before. She lectured us on their "unique" concept of family-style cuisine, what the dipping sauces were, etc. I'm surprised she didn't tell us how to use chopsticks. (Haha, no worries, there are forks galore.) The food, overpriced as it was, was not half-bad, though I wouldn't have minded going to a cheap dollar place instead.

Then there's the case of the Straits Cafe, located in SF and Santana Row. It's nearby that Asian decor shop where my brother likes to point out that crappy oil paintings that sit collecting dust in my grandfather's garage could probably sell for tens of thousands of dollars here. Straits serves Malaysian food, which is a collection of a whole bunch of cuisines in the Southeast Asian area. One difference between this and P.F. Chang's? The table has a lazy susan. Other than that, it was predictable fare. A combination of Indian and Thai food in my opinion. And a small amount of calamari for $10. In terms of decor, they don't even try to make it authentic. It seems utterly American. The music made it seem like one of Jeanette's online music shows.

In other news, I had the windows replaced on my apartment. My parents were afraid the contractors might come in and steal my credit card numbers or something, but that wasn't the case. The search for a roommate continues as my landlord has slashed the rent offered to $475 from $500 before and the $550 I'm currently paying. Now she calls almost every day wondering if I've found a person to move in. So now I have to make another ad. I sincerely hope no one responds. It's nice having at least a little privacy.

Finally, could someone explain to me how Steve, he of the Oakland bunch, has come to be president of the Berkeley VSA? I can see it now. No fundraising needed...they all should be able to make the money they need through trips to Cache Creek.

Runaway Jury
The widow of a murdered lawyer, shot by a madman with a semi-automatic weapon, does what any widow would do in this situation: sue the gun manufacturer of course. So she hires Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) and proceeds to sue Vicksburg Firearms. The company is obviously worried about the outcome of the case and hires a jury consultant led by Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). But this is no ordinary jury consulting firm (Jeremy Piven seems to play this role for the plaintiffs). Armed with high-tech equipment, manpower, and unlimited sources of information, they can pick and choose jurors while manipulating the swing jurors their way through other means. Enter Nicholas Easter, played by John Cusack. By an unknown motive, he gets on that jury, allowing girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz) to offer the jury to either side for a price of $10 million.

Based on the John Grisham novel and directed by Gary Fleder, this movie provides solid entertainment but nothing truly remarkable. While it has the addition of a juror's point of view and the tampering of said jury, "Runaway Jury" hits with the same level of impact of a "Practice" episode. Not even a good one, just an average one at that. It even got Dylan McDermott to cameo as the murdered lawyer. The plot holes in the beginning and the preaching at the end didn't exactly help. Hackman's scenes as a forceful manipulator, not as the helpless fool, really worked well. But other than that, the performances by some big name stars were underwhelming, especially Hoffman, who as a principled attorney, sticks to his guns and as a result, doesn't get the juicy scenes Hackman and Cusack get. So watch the first half for the interesting parts but by the time the case gets rolling, you know what exactly will happen. 2.5 stars

The Last Samurai
This past Thanksgiving, I got reacquainted with the films of Akira Kurosawa, the master of Japanese cinema, by watching his best colorized film, "Ran", a Japanese version of Shakespeare's King Lear. His balance of still imagery and the realistic bloody scenes of the samurai truly describes the visionary he was. Kurosawa and a variety of other films influenced director Edward Zwick's latest creation, "The Last Samurai".

In it, Tom Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren, a Civil War soldier now doing nothing in the year 1876 except for being a spokesman for the gun company Winchester for $25 a week. An opportunity arises to train the Japanese army into a modern fighting machine and Algren is forced to take it. Japan faces a civil war pitting the forces who want to modernize and plan ahead for the future with guns and trade agreements against the traditionalists, namely the Samurai. The emperor is loyal to both and is reluctant to commit to either side. With a couple of weeks training, the unprepared army is rushed into its first battle and is easily vanquished. Algren is taken prisoner by the leader of the samurai, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). For the next 6 months, Algren is witness to a highly disciplined society and soon learns the ways of the samurai as well as the Japanese language. As compassionate as he is for them, he is returned to the other side as Katsumoto travels to Tokyo to try to negotiate peace. He ultimately fails and he and Algren return to the village to prepare for a fight that will decide the fate of Japan's military future.

One of the best movies of the last 15 years is Zwick's "Glory" with the similar storyline of a white man surrounded by a black army. And for the first hour, it seemed this would be the same, straight down to Algren forcing a soldier to shoot with the sounds of gunfire in the air. After Algren was captured, the movie grew into something more. We come to appreciate the Japanese way of life as Algren had. We see some in Japan turning into their American counterparts, technologically superior with money as their language of choice. And we see the distinguishing qualities of being honorable and being dishonorable.

The movie, though long at almost two and a half hours, moves quickly with a fast pace to its story. Even at its most tender moments, especially the culmination of the budding romance between Algren and his caretaker Taka, the pacing is just right, not too fast we would miss it nor too slow that it drags. Cruise is solid in his role but the real star is Watanabe, whose silence speaks volumes and otherwise does a lot with the words he speaks and the leadership he shows. The film though is guilty of placing a lot of 20th-century references into a 19th-century period piece, from some of the phrases being said to battles and situations we've seen in countless movies before. So what sets this movie apart with those countess movies? "The Last Samurai" is the complete package, full of emotion, action adventure, and a few moments of humor, including a small homage to Cruise's dance in "Risky Business".

No, it doesn't reach the level of Kurosawa, but, in this day and age, what can? 3.5 stars

Bad Santa
Christmas always brings a sense of joy to all who celebrate it. It's no different for Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) and Marcus (Tony Cox). Every Christmas, Willie plays a mall Santa and Marcus his elf and they go around to a different mall each year and robs them on Christmas Eve. One Christmas, Willie believed it was the right time to call it quits but with his empty pockets, he's forced to do it again for one more Christmas, this time in Phoenix with an inquisitive mall manager (John Ritter, in his final role) and a know-it-all security chief (Bernie Mac). It now seems Willie has hit rock bottom. Barely able to stand up straight with all the drinking he does, he barely gets through the day, just waiting for the holiday season to end. A few nights in, he meets a fat kid who truly believes he is Santa Claus. At first Willie exploits him, but soon a connection develops and he becomes a father figure in his life. As a result, Willie is forced to balance good and bad, leading to a showdown in the end.

I never saw "Crumb" but I did see Terry Zwigoff's "Ghost World" which I thought brought a fresh view of outcasts growing up in a new world. Zwigoff again brings his sense of style to change what we know about dark comedies, "Bad Santa" being one of the darkest comedies I've ever seen. Every minute is filled with something offensive and every minute is filled with a laugh, some out loud, others just a chuckle. But a comedy needs to have its limits and this one doesn't have any, which really turned me off. It hit rock bottom when Willie starts to beat up children. Sure, it's to defend his new friend, but come now, that's pretty low. There's also some missed opportunities. Ritter seems to disappear after the first half of the movie and Cloris Leachman is the grandmother who either sits in her recliner or makes sandwiches. Still, the movie's pretty damn funny. 2.5 stars

21 Grams
At first glance, the three people we get to know in this movie have absolutely nothing in common. One is a math professor who's facing heart failure with a wife who is desperate to have his baby before he dies. Another is a reformed housewife with a loving husband and two kids. She used to do drugs. She still does, but she used to too. Finally, there's the ex-con who has turned to Christianity for guidance in life and believes God has a hand in everything he does. Yet, a tragic accident brings together the lives of Paul (Sean Penn), Cristina (Naomi Watts), and Jack (Benicio Del Toro) and sends each of them on a journey through pain and pleasure, love and loss, and desperation and death.

Look closer and you'll find a wonderful film. The thing most people will notice is the non-linear format of the film, something that can blow up in the face of an inexperienced director. But even though the film really is directed (and written) by an inexperienced director Alejandro Inarritu, he shows off the skills of a professional, making us wonder about the characters while we know in the back of our minds what's going to happen though it's disorienting at first. But in fact, by the ending, it all hits us with equal, if not greater, impact than it might have been chronologically. The performances are also key to this film's success. Penn is his usual angry self and Watts is a sight to see, but the best performance comes from Del Toro. Though his character is the least featured of the three, you can really sense the passion he exudes in his role and the transformation he's forced to go through, from one who believes in the word of God to one who questions them; from reformed criminal to criminal; from a nice family guy to a loner forced to separate from his family. The jumbled scenes portray these characters on a downward spiral but in the end, we realize we all have our roles in society and there isn't much we can do about it. 3.5 stars

Two great cartoons were recently published.

Lemme be the first, or tenth or hundredth, whatever the case may be, to wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving. I would consider this Thursday holiday special, but seeing as how I don't have classes on Thursdays, it's just a day with turkey instead of ramen.

Elf
Will Ferrell, in whatever role he's in, produces memorable characters with hilarious results. From the near death burn victim in Austin Powers, to a divorcee in Old School, and finally his portrayal as President George W. Bush on SNL, Ferrell has a way of doing anything for a laugh. In Elf, he plays Buddy the Elf. As a baby at the adoption agency, he sneaks into Santa's bag on Christmas and grows up on the North Pole. Years later, fully grown and obviously not an elf, he goes to New York to find his real father, who turns out to be an editor who looks amazingly like James Caan and goes by the name of Walter. With a family of his own, Walter isn't too receptive of meeting his son from a former relationship but he tries to make the best of it as the pressures of work become so great, he's in danger of getting fired. Buddy, in the meantime, has difficulty adjusting to city-life. After all, he's grown up as an elf. People celebrate Christmas for a short time every year while for Buddy, it's his entire life. He soon stumbles upon a partially decorated Santa's workshop with a fake Santa he loudly calls out. It's here that he's charmed by a "worker elf" in Jovie (Zooey Deschanel). Soon, it's Christmas Eve and Santa's having problems with his sleigh and only Buddy can help him out.

Without Ferrell, this story of elves and humans wouldn't be any good. It's the energy Ferrell brings to the role, with his big smile everywhere, that keeps us in a good mood throughout most of the movie. It isn't until its hurried and somewhat inexplicable ending that even Ferrell himself can't save. His fight with his elf counterpart is good for a cheap laugh, but nothing more. Santa's sleigh breaking down in Central Park with the Central Park police chasing him on horseback was just weird. Caan is supposed to be in the Christmas spirit by the end, but it doesn't seem like he changed a bit by the end. And ultimately, the North Pole is supposed to be a mythical place where we believe Santa and his elves are anxiously building toys for the next Christmas. But it seems Buddy comes and goes as he pleases. After all, he walks from the North Pole to New York! What's to stop someone to follow him and ruin Christmas for everyone? At least "The Santa Clause" had security measures. On the strength of Ferrell's performance in the first half along with playing along with what goes on in the second, gets this movie a borderline thumbs-up. 2.5 stars

Elephant
Alex and Eric lead pretty normal lives. Alex plays the piano. He's got parents who seem to be nice and on speaking terms. He plays video games. Eric is the buddy. They seem to do many things together. As such, they're gay and they're outcasts. Oh yeah, they like guns too.

The day was starting off pretty normally in an Oregon high school. A couple is going to the doctor to see if the girl is pregnant. A boy was taking care of his drunk father. Teenage girls ate a salad and quickly threw it back up in the bathroom. A young photographer stops a couple to take some pictures. An insecure girl is shelving books in the library. Ah, normal times. Then with guns they've ordered through the mail, Alex and Eric walk onto campus with no fear in their eyes, quietly load up, walk into the library and start blasting away as if they're playing the very video game seen earlier in the film.

Wow, the film treats these students' lives with such nonchalance, you get a pit in your stomach when you see them pinned down one by one after getting to know them for the first hour. There's no concrete reason given for Alex and Eric's shootout. They didn't even seem to be mad at anything. It was a calm killing all around, but to us, it's all too shocking. The same way the students' deaths are treated indifferently, the gunfire and violence are as well, It's not glorified or dignified, it just continues as it had in the first hour, by just filming it and watching. And that's the message writer and director Gus Van Sant seems to be sending in this film. Van Sant's style is simple and excellent, giving us a voyeuristic view of students' daily lives, following behind them as if we were there. Also well done was the intersecting storylines where different cameras following different students will meet up and then go on to give us a sense of timing. So yes, it's senseless, it's a tad bloody, and it's pretty much pointless as it stands, but afterwards, you can't help but wonder how that could have happened in the first place and where it will happen next. It stands to start discussion, not to answer why.

Well, I guess not exactly pointless. As Alex reminds Eric before they begin, the most important thing is to have fun. 3.5 stars

You know it. You tell the story. You tell the whole damn world this is Bear Territory.

The traditional chant after a win for the Golden Bears ran the chance of not being yelled out after the wrong Bears team showed up to the Big Game. For the first 30 minutes, it seemed we were watching a Tom Holmoe coached team. Dropped passes. Sputtering offense. Turnovers. In fact, 4 in the first half alone. Luckily, their opponent in Stanfurd was inept at handling the ball which kept the game close and allowed the sleeping Bears to wake up in the second half to score an ugly victory in the 106th Big Game.

It started off badly for the Bears on the opening kickoff as returner James Bethea coughed up the ball allowing the Cardinal to take advantage with a 3-0 lead. After exchanging punts a few times, Adimchinobe Echemandu's fumble deep in Stanfurd's end of the field allowed for a touchdown pass from Chris Lewis to make it 10-0. From then on, neither offense could do much with the ball as both teams missed field goals (Cal's Tyler Frederickson would be 0-3 on field goals for the day).

The Bears that came out in the second half was the team we became accustomed to throughout the season. QB Aaron Rodgers led the offense to 28 consecutive points and Stanfurd would not score again until no time was left to do anything about the outcome. Geoff McArthur had 2 touchdowns with little Vinny Strang and Echemandu scoring as well.

What does this all mean? Cal's going bowling. Depending on what happens with the BCS and the other Pac-10 teams, Cal's probably headed to either the Sun or Insight Bowls. Cal successfully defended the Axe for the first time since 1994 and Coach Jeff Tedford becomes the first coach since Joe Kapp to be 2 for 2 in their first 2 Big Games.

The Axe gets paraded around at noon Monday on the Sproul steps. Last year, I promised a camera to document the whole thing this year but first, I don't have a camera to use and second, I've got a midterm to study for that day. I'm sure I'll take a lot of mental pictures for me to enjoy.

Hey, fellas, what's cooler than being cool? Ice cold! Damn, it was freezing tonite at the Greek up til the bonfire was lit. It didn't help that they played Hey Ya no less than 3 times during the night. The song was good and while it still is, it's being overplayed to death; a victim of its own success.

There are always things that go wrong during the bonfire rally and this year was no different. Audio problems plagued the speakers and singers all night. The fire didn't light like they wanted. (They had to manually light it.) But once the fire was going, the show went on with a few new touches like the candle stunt (not as good as hyped) and a new act to go along with the usual suspects ("Cal Eye for the Square Guy" was just, well, queer). Still, an enjoyable evening had by all, highlighted by a larger-than-usual fire helped by a strong wind and the appearance of the axe for the first time in 8 years at the rally. I patted it a few times last year as it was paraded and maybe I'll do it again this year.

Of course, all of this is a far cry from Stanfurd's annual lighting of the cardboard boxes. You laugh when I say this and I'll admit, they use some firewood but when the size of their bonfire is about 15 feet, as seen here, and Cal's bonfire is 10 times that, it's a bit of a mismatch. Of course, they'll argue we need a bigger fire; we've got more people than them. The Cardinal spirit might be a bit lower this year after being hit with two pranks, the first being a Go Bears! banner hung from Hoover Tower on Wednesday while the costume for the Tree was stolen from the band in San Francisco. No one has claimed responsibility but Stanfurd of course blames Cal.

It all leads up to today's Big Game, #106. For the first time in ages, a bowl game hinges on the Big Game outcome with Cal needing to win this game while Stanfurd both of their remaining games. It begins at 12:30 tomorrow over there in Palo Alto.

While the fire raged on, Cal basketball played on, opening the season with a rare defeat. This was to Cal Poly, the UC of the CSU's. Not to belittle the school since my sister-in-law went there, but it can't really be described as a basketball powerhouse. Yet, they found a way to win with a last second jump shot.

Also, from what I hear, Oak Grove was eliminated from the football playoffs by those ding-dongs at Bellarmine. Close game though.

Okay, different subject.

What's your opinion on public urination? Hopefully, against it. Berkeley is filled with homeless, so you can't help but smell that stink when you walk your way through this town. But you know what, at least they're discreet about it. Walking home the other day (shudder at the thought; I actually walked home?), a car pulled over ahead of me, the passenger jumped out and started to relieve himself in the parking lot of the Tune-Up Masters, getting weird looks from the two girls walking in front of me. Geez, at least go behind a bush or those new green trash bins. Just not in front of me.

I don't know what's worse: Michael Jackson being accused of child molestation or subjecting the world with that mug shot. I mean, Nick Nolte and Wynonna Judd and the like had to be forced to take a picture, but Jackson surrendered and brought himself in, and he STILL looked like that, whatever that was.

My roommate finally moved out. I'm all alone here. And no one it seems wants to move in. Not even one inquiry. But it does feel nice to have all this space at half the cost.

As crazy as it sounds, there's one more midterm left and there's two weeks of instruction remaining in the semester. Time sure is moving pretty fast.

Best news I've heard all day:

Baby Stewie could be staging a comeback.

In a sign of the growing importance of DVD sales to Hollywood, 20th Century Fox is considering a plan to resume production of Family Guy, a sometimes crude animated comedy that the Fox network took off the air more than 18 months ago.

As many as 35 new episodes could return in January 2005, marking the first time that a canceled series has been revived based on strong DVD demand and ratings in syndication.

Fox Television Entertainment Group chairman Sandy Grushow said a decision is expected soon and called the series a late-blooming phenomenon that may have aired before its time.

A DVD set of the show's first 28 episodes released in April has sold nearly 1 million copies, making it this year's top-selling TV show and the No. 4 television title ever, according to Video Store magazine. A second collection, of 22 episodes, has sold 520,000 copies. And the series is Cartoon Network's most popular among adults.

Family Guy premiered with a big audience — 22 million viewers — and some controversy after Fox's 1999 Super Bowl telecast. In the pilot episode, Stewie, a talking toddler with a clipped British accent, was openly contemptuous of his loutish dad and bent on killing his sweet-natured mother in a quest for world domination.

Creator Seth MacFarlane, then 24, wrote scripts, drew characters, provided voices and infused the show with rapid-fire sight gags, a nod to The Simpsons. But ratings faded, and the show ended with a whimper early last year.

The relatively short network run may have helped DVD sales, Video Store's Judith McCourt says. "It really speaks to something that had a following, was cut off network TV, and people said, 'What did I miss?' "

DVD and cable viewers have "created kind of a groundswell that could lead to better ratings" on Fox, Grushow says, although new episodes could end up going directly to Cartoon Network.

A decision to restart the show suggests a reversal from the old TV business model, in which a network hit predicts a profit windfall in syndication. This time, the promise of DVD and syndication gold could justify a show's return even if low network ratings didn't.

But canceled favorites aren't likely to rise from the grave en masse. Family Guy has one major advantage: With no actors and no sets, it can simply be drawn back into existence.

From USAToday.com

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) heads the crew of the naval ship Surprise patrolling the Atlantic. Great Britain is being threatened by Napoleon and the French and the ocean is now the primary battlefield. Aubrey's orders are to intercept a French ship named the Acheron and keep it from controlling the seas outside of Brazil. Their first battle though was less than successful, in fact, it was a disaster. Outmanned and outgunned, Aubrey and the Surprise flee to rebuild and reload. It soon leads to elusiveness and lots of chasing. After rounding the horn, it seems apparent that Aubrey has lost the Acheron. He satisfies the wishes of his injured best friend Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), the ship's doctor and budding naturalist, by allowing him time to explore the Galapagos Islands. It is through this exploration that they happen upon the Acheron and Aubrey soon devises a plan to try to end this mission as quickly as possible.

Before the construction of the Panama Canal, sailors needed to round Cape Horn to get to the Pacific Ocean. That takes a very long time, months and months. And you know what, that's how the first half of the movie felt; like an eternity. While the film is to be commended for its realism and character development, the fact of the matter is, these people are awfully boring. It slowed the entire movie down and it didn't help that we had 6 or 7 different boring storylines to keep track of. It's particularly troubling when a crew member gets killed or does something memorable, but we can only ask "Who was that guy?" The only interesting guy there is Aubrey himself, who covers a wide range of personalities, from heroic, to intelligent, to musically talented, etc. But the movie doesn't pick up until the Galapagos Islands, when we see a different side of sailors that we're not accustomed to seeing in earlier naval efforts, and the ensuing battle with the Acheron, which is crisp with tension and a sight to see with cannons going off, Aubrey leading the way in hand-to-hand combat and a teenager in command. 3 stars

Happy Veterans Day to all. It doesn't seem like much of a holiday though. It's on a crappy Tuesday this year, meaning Monday was a school day. The private schools don't observe it; the school I live next to was alive and buzzing, even louder than recent mornings, which got me up when their bell rang at 8, when I usually get up on Tuesdays. All financial markets and businesses seem to be open. No time to reflect when there's a dollar to be made. Even the Senate is in session after Senator Reid of Nevada spoke for 8 straight hours yesterday in protest of an upcoming 30-hour session on judicial nominations, holding up an appropriations bill. So it seems Veterans Day will always be lost in the shadow of Memorial Day. At least it has this Simpsons dialogue.

Bart: I just think our veterans deserve a little recognition.
Lisa: That's what Veterans Day is for, Bart.
Bart: But is that really enough to honor our brave soldiers?
Lisa: They also have Memorial Day!
Bart: Oh Lisa, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, the important thing is that veterans deserve a day to honor them!
Lisa: They have TWO!
Bart: Well maybe they should have three, I'm Bart Simpson.

Like almost everyone else, I'm fighting illness right now, luckily in its later stages. Still, I'm feelin awfully tired, even though I always feel like that nowadays. But things got worse on Sunday when I wanted soup, but I couldn't find the can opener anywhere. Not knowing what to do, I did what any desperate guy would do and bashed that can open. Geez, what a loser I am.

The roommate search is going nowhere fast. I guess I'll have to relist it.

Somebody stole my professor's car, an old Nissan Pathfinder. He seems to be taking it in stride, but is it coincidence that it was stolen shortly after midterms? The funny thing is he offered the class extra credit to whomever can find it.

ESPN has been showing some weird things lately. The Spelling Bee is one thing, but the Math competition is a complete waste of time. Playmakers is over-the-top football fun (its season finale is tonite), but Deion Sanders on the All-American Sportsman is a mismatch. Honestly though, do Scrabble and chess belong on ESPN? Scrabble is something to play for fun, not as part of a competition. It doesn't make for good television. Chess does make for good television, they even made a good movie about it with "Searching for Bobby Fischer". But trotting out Garry Kasparov to face a bunch of machines is boring even if this time it's in a virtual reality/3D environment.

As for traditional sports, Cal needs to win its final two games to reach a bowl game for the first time since 1996 when Steve Mariucci coached the football team. It lost last Saturday night to Oregon, blowing a 10 point lead heading into the 4th quarter.

But what's cooler than being cool? The Raiders, at 2-7, are literally ice cold. And to top it off, they're really old too. They're holders of the league's worst record. I would usually laugh, since I'm not a Raiders fan, but this is getting ridiculous.

As a former soccer player (please, I emphasize former and I was awful), I stay interested in the game. How can you take your eyes off the World Cup? But that's every 4 years. In the meantime, there's the crappy MLS. Every year, one thing turns me off from it. This year, it's the playoff format. They went to a two-game aggregate score format, which is totally unfair for a team like San Jose, which blew away the competition and into a first seed in the conference playoffs. With two games, there's no home field advantage. And if one team runs up the score in the first game, the other has little chance of winning the series in the next. In this situation, Los Angeles defeated San Jose last weekend 2-0, which meant San Jose, at home, needed to win by 3 goals in the next and final game to advance. This task was further complicated by the Galaxy scoring twice within the first 13 minutes of the second game. Miraculously, the Earthquakes scored 4 unanswered goals, then scored the golden goal to advance and face Kansas City in the semifinals.

Finally, kudos to the VTA. They've finally finished widening 880 to 3 lanes each way all the way to 101.

NBC has just unleashed the show "Average Joe" to the world. It's a concept where one beautiful girl, in this case a former cheerleader and Miss Missouri, gets to choose between 16 average-looking guys where in a normal situation, she would probably push them aside in search for a better-looking guy. This group of guys fit the profile of nice guys finishing last. Then like most dating shows, once you get to know someone, looks don't apply, it's personality that counts. It's funny to watch the girl go through that, but a little uncomfortable to watch since I could probably be on the show. It all reminded me of a chain email I got last month about geeks, the very people vying to win on the show. Don't know who wrote this, but by the miniscule chance the author stumbles upon this very site and wants credit where credit is due, say so.


What is a geek?

A geek, quite simply, is a man or woman who is too intelligent for their own good, who is sweet and funny, but slightly socially inept. They generally have a passion for sci-fi and/or fantasy novels, table top or live action gaming (think Dungeons and Dragons), and make obscure jokes. There is often a fascination with computers that comes in very handy for the non-geeks around them. They are often giving to the point of getting hurt, and don't understand that others may find them attractive.

Keep in mind that not all of these will fit a particular geek. There are computer geeks, humanities geeks, music geeks, comic book geeks, gamer geeks, etc. You need to figure out which one is which.

Computer geeks are pretty much just that. A finer distinction would be between the hardware and software geeks, the Linux geeks (watch out...Linux isn't so much an operating system as it is a religion for them), the Mac geeks, the Perl geeks, etc. If you want to understand a damn thing they're saying, you should either have a good baseline knowledge of computers or be willing to learn.

Humanities geeks are your literature geeks, history geeks, psychology geeks, etc. They know all sorts of esoteric facts and are surprised when you didn't know that. They're the people who know all the Jeopardy answers and there is often much crossover between the fields. Most lit people know a good deal of history and vice versa. They tend to have extensive libraries, and relate a little too closely to the character of Hermione in the Harry Potter books, especially when she looks around in exasperation and asks "Don't you people read?"

Music geeks are perhaps the most trendy of the geeks. They're the ones you see in places like used music stores, indie stores, and looking guilty when found in mainstream music stores. They usually can play several instruments and want you to listen to bands you've never heard of (along with the rest of the world).

Comic book geeks live and breathe comic books. Usually they stick to one or two comics (like X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, etc) but they know the entire storyline of that series going back years and years. On the other hand, most women can do that with soap operas. These geeks tend to have a silly side, and are very young at heart. You'll find yourself climbing a tree for the first time in years, or getting on a skateboard because it's "fun!"

Gamer geeks talk about games they've played like it actually happened. They usually refer to each other by their character names. This can be odd at first, but think of how often you do that online. Don't stress. These are very imaginative types. And again, they'll convince you to dress up or do something you'd never do because it's fun.

Most geeks are a mixture of the above. There's plenty of crossover. But they usually are one flavor predominantly with a little bit of this and that thrown in for flavor.

So what's the difference between a geek, a nerd, and a dork?

Several factors.

Geeks are slightly socially inept, but they either can conquer it or already have to a degree. Nerds can't and dorks won't. None will ever be the life of a party however. Geeks will find a few people to talk to, nerds will watch from the side of the room and dorks will go hide.

Geeks take care of themselves. They may forget to eat once and awhile, but they bathe regularly and try to smell and look good. They may have different standards of what style is, but they try. Nerds tend to dress like they're already in their 40's, both girls and guys. Dorks don't have a clue and are usually the ones with the pocket protector.

Geeks want to occasionally play in the mainstream, although they also enjoy a round of "freak out the mundanes." Nerds and dorks generally pride themselves on never doing so.

Geeks want to interact with the outside world and will make an effort. Nerds want to but don't know how. Dorks don't want to.

The Matrix Revolutions
So everything that has a beginning has an end. After watching this, I'm not so sure of that. When we last left the cast of "The Matrix", we were left wondering about Neo (Keanu Reeves), stuck between the real world and the machine world, and the fate of Zion, threatened by the machines and its many sentinels. The wild card in all of this is Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), who has now appeared in the real world and rapidly gains control of the matrix itself. Once Neo awakens from his coma and gets out of the middle world, it takes a little time but finds his true calling at the center of machine city and requests a ship. With the attack looming, the crew is hesitant to give up another ship but Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), going on advice from the Oracle (Mary Alice, taking over for the late Gloria Foster), offers her ship to him and off he leaves with Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). Meanwhile, the other ship with Niobe, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), and others race back to Zion to save what is left of the place. The machines are drilling their way through the dock while the humans are wasting away bullets and shells to block their path. It soon becomes serious enough that the infantry faces a showdown with the machines. And, as the trailer gives away, Neo faces Agent Smith for another time. The fate of both worlds lies in their hands.

I think with some creative editing, the whole Matrix experience would have been a whole lot better by making Reloaded and Revolutions one big movie. Instead, we get a movie loaded with character development and plot without much explanation or action (Reloaded) while Revolutions is the complete opposite. The movie seems to coast on a computer-controlled auto-pilot, knowing full well what we want to see while lacking imagination in trying to explain what we're seeing, something it did very well in the first installment, the only one to strike a harmonious balance. Visual effects were always a strong point in the Matrix films, and this does not disappoint. The Zion battle scenes are something to truly applaud and watch on a larger screen than the one I did (IMAX, perhaps? While it makes the action scenes much better, you might not want to spend the $10-15 to watch it). The Agent Smith/Neo fight is bigger and better, more complicated and poignant with the addition of water in the mix and less cartoonish with the subtraction of all those Agent Smiths from the last one. However, the bookends weren't as good as expected. The beginning eases us in, trying to explain Neo's coma but the use of the Merovingian doesn't seem to be necessary (probably the only reason to bring him in was to get us to see an underused Monica Bellucci again) as the resolution to this plot point. The ending itself is muddled, possibly raising just as many questions as it answers. And while it hints at another movie, maybe it should go ahead and make it since this one is a semi-letdown to what it could have been and what we hoped for. 3 stars

What a difference a day makes. My last post complained about the hot weather. Now, there's clouds are in the sky, 60 degree temperatures, and wind howling outside my window. Perfect weather in my book.

The roommate search is far from perfect, though there were responses and that surprised me. There's a guy not too interested in the place but burdened me with many questions anyway. There's a map in the ad, but he still asked me where the place was. There's a French guy who's working on a grad degree in sociology. Very bad in English; took me a while to decipher his message. And finally, there's a Spanish guy who works in the labs up in the hills. He only needs a place for a month, so he's eliminated. Yes, that leaves the Frenchie but he hasn't been returning my emails or calls. So it's back to the drawing board. At least Vishnu has extended his stay another 2 weeks.

The VSA date auction was last Tuesday, a far more classier event than last semester's. People were actually dressed up and the place decorated though it would have been better if the place was bigger. Yes, the ladies were attractive but still, I don't understand where people can get the money to bid into the triple digits, sometimes on multiple people.

Yesterday, during 141, Professor Duncan was wearing a suit for some meeting he had that day. Geez, seeing him wear that, it seemed like his body shrunk and his head was just about ready to explode.

I've been watching a little more music lately and there are 4 categories to separate them. 1. Good song, good video; 2. good song, bad video; 3. bad song, good video; 4. bad song, bad video. You rarely see 3, 1 and 4 happen about the same, but 2 happens most frequently. I mention this only because I've seen much more of 4 lately. Britney Spears has a new song out and it seems she wants to follow in Justin's footsteps in trying to black. Just like Justin, she basically repeats the same 3 lines constantly, over and over again, repetitively. And it's awful. Just like her video where it seems she's just walking around in a maze until she hooks up with Madonna and then they dance around a bed frame. Well, at least they don't stop in the middle of moving traffic.

A breath of fresh air would be No Doubt's new video, "It's My Life", a remake of Talk Talk's version from the '80s. This is definitely in category 1. You'll laugh and cry and see death and destruction. And all the while, Gwen is singing her heart out in the courtroom or in a straight-jacket. Gwen actually looks young and pretty even though she's pushing like 60 or 70 right? It's all that white pancake makeup I guess.

Here's something about Survivor. If you hadn't heard, the big twist allowed those who were kicked off a second chance by allowing them to form a third tribe and compete against the two existing tribes. By winning tonight's competition, these outcasts forced the other two tribes to kick off one of their members while the Outcasts would vote two of their own to rejoin the game. On the Morgan tribe, Osten graciously bowed out of the game and gave up without getting voted out, claiming his mind and body were spent. To which a newsgroup poster responded in caps, "BUT HE'S BLACK!" (his words, not mine)

Still, it's called Survivor! What did he expect?

Under the Tuscan Sun
Frances (Diane Lane) is going through some tough times. She's going through a divorce, a move to a singles complex, and now at a crossroads in life. And according to her friends, only a previously planned trip to Tuscany will cure what ails her. When she arrives as part of a tour with gay males, she's the typical tourist until she lays her eyes on a villa that's up for sale. A day later, she owns it. As part of her rebirth, she gets to rebuild her home, meet the neighbors, find romance in all the right places, and intervene on behalf of a young Polish worker eager to win his girlfriend's parents' approval. And all the while, she finds happiness where she hadn't had it before.

The movie is very pretty to look at. The scenes of the Italian countryside are lush with vibrant colors and full of life; a photographer's dream. Diane Lane is very pretty to look at. Few actresses can light up and command the screen with her beauty while dazzling us with her acting abilities. But other than the rebuilding of the home to bring a sense of comic relief as well as revitalization in her life and the support of her best friend (who at first doesn't want to go to Italy because of her pregnancy, yet goes there when she's much farther along), the movie really goes through many hoops to get to the end result with different storylines that either lead to nowhere or simply just aren't interesting. The scenes with the two star-crossed lovers don't exude true love and doesn't convince me as to why her parents would agree to marriage. I really don't understand the point of Katherine (Lindsay Duncan) in the movie. And can someone distinguish which guy is which? Or are they all the same person? As you try to figure it out, marvel at Lane and Italy; they're the things to watch. 2 stars

I'm sorry. I'm just a little steamed right now. That hour that got added on from daylight savings time and forced me to wake up an hour earlier brought things to a simmer. The hot weather brought things to a boil.

I've had my Hotmail account now for 6 years. It's my main email address, not like that crappy junk-mail infested thing that is my email address found on the sidebar. (Though I do check it, the ratio between real messages and junk messages is like 1 in 300.) Whenever someone sends me something interesting worth saving, I save it. So whether it's goodbye notices, important info., or funny stories (the Adventures of Pillow Boy comes to mind), it's kept in one of my Hotmail folders. That's 6 years worth of messages. It reached 400 a couple years back so I whittled it down to about 100. (I had kept some idiotic things.)

So last night, I check my email and find all the messages are blank. I click on all my inbox messages and the ones in my saved folder. They're all blank. I also found it weird when it said I'm using negative 22% of my space. So I sent support an email. Boy, those bastards at Microsoft were prompt. My email was back up and running within a few hours.

Small problem. Where 70 messages in my inbox used to be (I was a little slow in reading the letters and newsletters), now there were 2. Where 150 saved messages used to be, now there were 0. So with memories gone and nothing I can do about it, I'm a bit mad and ticked off right now. But I'll look on the bright side. It's the first time I've ever seen a green bar to note the size of my account.

With the exception of Scary Movie yesterday and tonite's dinner plans, it's a pretty quiet weekend for me. So I used the time to actually list my apartment. If you haven't heard, my roommate Vishnu (or as Hai and Datman like to say, God, as one of the three major Hindu gods is Vishnu) is moving to Indiana because of work (and not because he wanted to be in a place with India in the name. Please, it was a joke.)

Being a senior with few friends below my year, nobody wants to move in with me when it's their last year. Either that or there's something wrong with me personally. And I have no intention of moving out. So I've had to turn to services such as Craigslist to spread the word. At $500 rent and being November when someone could move in, it figures to be tough, but I'll get through it. The landlord's nice enough to let me stay alone at a slightly higher price if I don't find anyone.

Why is it so hot today?!? I am in Berkeley, ain't I? In October! And it was 90 degrees, probably more. Ok, that's it. Time to face the sun. I'm hungry.

To all those reading tonite, time to fall down and change those clocks. Daylight savings time ends tonight and you gotta set those clocks back by an hour or else you'll be early for a whole lot of things in the near future.

Scary Movie 3
Webster's Dictionary defines excellence as the quality of being excellent. (Simpsons joke if no one recognizes it.) Excellence used to be a term that could describe Scary Movie. The first one was a work of genius, a picture that made fun of a picture that made fun of horror movies. By the second one, the trend seriously went the other way with its parody of "The Haunting". To right the ship, they brought in David Zucker to direct, someone who also used to live up to the word excellence with his Airplane! and Naked Gun films. But his latest films of "My Boss' Daughter" and "BASEketball" also show him headed in the wrong direction. With "Scary Movie 3", it's obvious two wrongs don't make a right.

Two years was just enough time to collect enough material for this third movie. The main film to make fun of was "The Ring" with a little bit of "The Matrix", "8 Mile" and "Signs" among others on the side. Our favorite woman in distress Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) is now a news reporter, interested by the story of a crop circle just 20 miles away at a cornfield, owned by Tom (Charlie Sheen), the former priest. His brother, George (Simon Rex), the aspiring white rapper, falls for Cindy when they meet picking up their niece and nephew, respectively, at the school where Cindy's friend, Brenda (Regina Hall from the previous installments), teaches. Soon, Cindy's nephew begins drawing weird pictures and reading secret thoughts while aliens begin landing. And all the while, a videotape floats around where the people who watch it die in 7 days. Oh, what will they do?!?

Laugh all the way home with money in their pockets, that's what. It's a marked improvement over the last installment but still isn't worthy of the first one. Its best moments are given away in the trailer while its other pieces of original hilarity get beaten into the ground with repetition. Haha, he gets hit in the crotch! Let's do it again! So inspired it isn't. You could tell as much from the performances its actors put forth. Most of it looked pretty forced with the exception of Leslie Nielsen and Ja Rule, who looked like they were having fun beating up on handicapped people. The 8 Mile and Matrix skits were downright awkward while having a priest babysit a boy was just wrong. With word that Scary Movie 4 is in pre-production, they should take more than 2 years to make it. 1.5 stars

This can't be good for my career prospects.

Height May Make or Break Your Career

Tall people may the have upper hand when it comes to financial and career success, and not just on the basketball court.

A new study shows that tall people earn more money throughout their lives and are more successful in their careers than short people.

"Height matters for career success," says researcher Timothy Judge, a management professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, in a news release. "These findings are troubling in that, with a few exceptions such as professional basketball, no one could argue that height is an essential ability required for job performance nor a bona fide occupational qualification."

Researchers examined four previously published studies in the U.S. and U.K. that followed thousands of people from children to adulthood and tracked details of their career success and personal lives along with their height. The results are scheduled for publication in spring 2004 in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

After controlling for factors such as gender, age, and weight, researchers found that a difference of mere inches in height made a big difference in terms of annual income. In fact, every extra inch added up to an extra $789 in pay.

For example, someone who was six feet tall earned an average of about $5,525 more than someone who was seven inches shorter.

"If you take this over the course of a 30-year career and compound it, we're talking about literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of earnings advantage that a tall person enjoys," says Judge.

Researchers also found that height was most closely tied to success among occupations that rely on appearance and stature as a measure of success, such as sales and management. Height was more also predictive of earnings in blue-collar jobs than in professional-technical jobs such as engineering.

"If height has the social status we think it does, it stands to reason that tall people would sell more cars because they're seen as a more authoritative source on the matter," says Judge.

Researchers say that people's perceptions of tall people may be a remnant of our evolutionary origins.

Judge says that continuing to rely on those outdated perceptions may not only cause unfair discrimination, but it could have serious economic repercussions.

"If we're giving great weight to an attribute like height that's irrelevant to performance on the job, then we're introducing error in our hiring and promotion decisions that causes inefficiencies in our economy," says Judge.

Originally published here.

Sorry if this sounds too tired but I just went through the most boring guest lecture. It involved some stats guy in the Public Utilities Commission, an agency that supposedly regulates all things moving within the state like telephones, power, you know that sort of thing. As a friend of the professor, he got to spend one whole hour mouthing off on the latest report he wrote, a statistical analysis on the performance of local telephone service. Not exactly an attention-grabbing topic. An awkward moment came when he was telling about one of his experiences as a judge and a really bad statistician came up to testify. He mentioned that he used data collected over 25 years and regressed it on a 10 year model, a statistical no-no, so bad that it caused the speaker to laugh his ass off. As the half-asleep audience slowly woke up, we all stayed silent as we watched him and the professor laugh. The TA sitting next to him was still fast asleep.

Even though it's my 4th year of doing this, I'm still surprised by how early Tele-Bears gets started. It's like we just started school and now we have to choose more classes? Can't it wait? Afraid not. So there I was today scurrying around getting advisor codes. The schedule I wrote up over the weekend was all set until the game theory class I was taking got pushed by an hour and a half to 8 am. Then there were time conflicts galore. Out of a possible 5 classes I wanted to take, all 5 happened to be at 8 am. So things had to get pushed around and now it looks like a 3-day schedule next semester.

I was at Oakridge over the weekend and saw a few people including Gurjeet, Ted and Krystal with a K. The funniest part was when the fire alarm went off and everybody continued on their way. The loud sirens and the messages to vacate the building weren't being taken too seriously. Security guards stayed at their posts. The poor Century employee standing guard at the edge of the escalators just stood there. Let's just hope they get their act together if a fire really does occur since that place is way too small for the number of people the mall is handling.

People search for some crazy things to get to this site. Lately though, the same search words have been used. The popular ones include, of all things, trying to find out what kind of Louis Vuitton bag Jessica Simpson carries around on Newlyweds (how the heck should I know?), what song Radiohead performed on Letterman on Friday ("2+2=5", a mediocre song according to my sister), and who Renee Fleming is (the headlining opera singer in New York who sang the national anthem at the World Series over the weekend). And please, there are no torrents here. Does this look like a torrent site?

Cal football is on the verge of being eliminated from bowl contention. They need to win 4 out of their last 5 after a 23-20 loss to UCLA. When you miss 4 out of 6 field goals, you don't deserve to win.

I Love the '80s is back with a sequel. While unneeded, it's much better than going to the '60s. You would've lost way too many people by then. The formula is quite simple. Dig up obscure products, songs, shows, and stories from the '80s and have equally obscure people describe what they remember of it. Usually it's: "_____? I loved ______!!" or "Wow. That takes me back." or they sing along to the theme song that goes with it. Hey, at least unemployed singers and actors are getting to the screen once again. It's already been two weeks since the recall.

One of the reasons my neighbor chose to go to UCSD over Berkeley was the fact that people in Berkeley seemed a bit rushed. They had a lot of things to do and a small amount of time to do it, and it showed by the way they walked and talked. Not even walk he said, run. Sure, we have a lot of things on our minds, but it's such a rare occurrence to see someone running through campus. I was reminded of my neighbor when today alone, I saw no less than 5 people running through campus on their way to class or to the streets or whatever. I was shocked. One ran out of Evans Hall, down the small valley and toward the Glade. Another was running through Sproul like a madman. The most extreme case was a guy running and ran into a girl, knocking her into the grass. He apologized, got her up, and then just like that, started running again. What was the big rush?

Here's a reason from me. CalPIRG. Those relentless environmentalists are at it again, trying to raise money for whatever they spend the money for. I'm sure their cause to protect the environment and open up government is a worthy one, but I don't really don't need another charge on my CARS bill but there they are, seemingly lining my way to class, waiting for me to sign up. Two today, one who wanted to walk me to class, luckily I was already there. Others were trying to convince other unlucky souls. And the only thing that can protect me from them is that little sticker saying I've pledged. If I put on an "I'm poor" sticker, will it have the same effect?

It’s nice to know that old Asian guy who stands on that bucket at Bancroft and Telegraph mouthing off a few lines for a few hours has somewhere to go when he’s done. There he was, sitting next to me on the 51 bus home. Luckily, he didn’t get off on my stop.

On a non-Berkeley note, congrats to the Florida Marlins for making it to the World Series. They beat a very good Cubs team whose championship-less streak will extend to 96 years. Still, even though the Marlins won the World Series in ‘96, it’s strange for me to believe they’ve reached this level. For the sentimentalists out there, Boston is still kicking with the series-deciding game tomorrow night. The Yankees have enough championships, right? Let poor Boston have one; they haven’t won since 1918 but please, no more about the curse.

Kill Bill: Volume 1
Quentin Tarantino’s 4th film six years in the making seems to be the one that’s most like his personality: musically beautiful but on-screen, seriously twisted. Black Mamba (Uma Thurman) is all ready to be married with a child on the way, but the assassin group she just left has other plans for her, namely her death. While the whole wedding party is killed, Black Mamba falls into a coma after a bullet from the crime boss Bill (David Carradine, face unseen), grazes her head. Four years later, she awakens and lays the groundwork for her revenge on the five people that contributed to her attempted death.

Being Volume 1 of 2, she only gets to tackle two of the group, Vernita Green or Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox) and O-Ren Ishii or Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu). Green has settled down in the suburbs with a daughter of her own while Ishii has become crime boss of Tokyo. Both have intricate martial arts sequences lasting longer than 20 minutes in one case. In her heart though, Black Mamba knows she won’t be fully healed until she gets to Bill.

The music is very good, the best being from the trailer as well as in the movie “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” by Tomoyasu Hotei. The rest is a mix of Japanese Pop and cool beats with a little bit of Nancy Sinatra thrown in. The martial arts sequences are exceptionally good with maybe a little bit too much blood being spilled on the floor. Does the human body really spray that much blood into the air when you slice off a limb? But there’s a lot to digest in this film and I wish Tarantino could have made the effort to cut down a little of the film to make it more manageable to fit into one film instead of two and having us wait. But I can understand how much devotion a director has with a film and it would be hard for him to give up any of it, even at the expense of sitting there for 4 hours. Its length and the numerous devices to follow the plot (in a non-linear way, of course, using anime and black-and-white filming) along with a number of pop culture references (Star Trek and maybe even Star Wars if I heard the scene correctly, among others) buries the film’s message that could let us identify with the characters or figure out why this happened in the first place but I sure hope the second part can explain it all. And that Alias-style ending where the last line is meant to surprise didn’t really awe the audience at all. (Coincidentally, Tarantino guest-starred in two episodes on Alias.) As this incomplete film stands, it is one that stands for its coolness to attract people to its second feature and nothing else. 3 stars

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Inspired by the true story, 5 people are driving up to Dallas when they happen upon a hitchhiker visibly shaken by some traumatic event. She mumbles that some people are all dead and screams that they were going the wrong way when they pick her up to try to bring her to some help. Disturbed by these events, she shoots herself in the head and so begins the chain of events. Trying to dispose of the body, the five (Jessica Biel, Eric Balfour, Jonathan Tucker, Mike Vogel and Erica Leerhsen) are led to an old mill where they were told they could find the sheriff. All they find is a mysterious boy, who tells them the sheriff is at a nearby house. So while the group splits off, Leatherface makes his grand entrance, chainsaw in hand. Among the cast of characters is R. Lee Ermey as the Sheriff, in his best tough guy role since “Full Metal Jacket”.

While viewers of the original may be disappointed in this move toward Hollywood horror from its low-budget roots, first-time viewers will be more than scared from this movie. Like any horror movie, the inevitable telegraphing of events is there with people going their separate ways, lots of running, and dumb stereotypical decisions that lead to deafening audience screams of “Don’t go in there!” But this is one of those movies where if you blink, you will absolutely miss something (like that Harry Knowles head you find in Leatherface’s basement). By the end, you’ll be wondering what’s been filled more: your appetite for horror or that tank top Biel wears throughout the movie. The film is crisp, the scenes grotesque, and Leatherface is just as supernatural as ever where nothing ever slows him down in his quest for more bodies to kill. 3 stars

School of Rock
Times are tough for Dewey Finn (Jack Black). He's part of a rock band that hopes to win the Battle of the Bands competition coming up. His roommate, Ned (writer Mike White) along with his girlfriend Patty (Sarah Silverman) frown upon the numerous times Dewey has borrowed money from him and want him to get a job. His dreams of rock stardom come crashing down after he's kicked out of the band in favor of someone younger. So broke in more ways than one, a savior comes in the form of Principal Rosalie Mullins (Joan Cusack), who seeks the services of Ned to substitute for a class. When Dewey finds out the money he'd make as a sub, he becomes Ned and begins to substitute a class of 4th graders. While he has no business being a substitute teacher, Dewey stumbles upon their music class and soon comes up with the idea to start a band with members of the whole class. In a few short weeks, Dewey has managed to get the class to live and breathe rock and roll, unbeknownst to their parents or the principal. But disguised as a class project, more questions are asked than answered and Dewey must find a way to keep things together until the big day.

Black hasn't reached the levels of a successful mainstream comedian but this movie raises his level significantly. His character is one-of-a-kind and throughout the course of events through the movie, his values stay true to form, treating music like God and spreading his knowledge of it to inquiring minds. And while his means of communicating his message was ultimately flawed, and in some ways a bit disturbing, he gets the job done with a hilarious over-the-top feel. The kids are great co-stars, both in their acting ability and their musical talents. I only wish they could have included Cusack in the movie more, her role highlighted, and basically limited, to a Stevie Nicks performance. But the band School of Rock is the thing to see in the movie "School of Rock" and what we need now is an encore. 3.5 stars