"Regrets. I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention."
That was the line from "My Way," by Frank Sinatra. It's that line I have been thinking most about this week. If there is one real regret I got right now, it is that I didn’t take the time to get to know certain people I have crossed paths with throughout my life, especially with some of those from my previous I.T. helpdesk job that I left in August 2008.
The recent email I received from a former colleague through Facebook Monday night letting me know that a co-worker I knew named Michael LaFever passed away Feb. 21, 2010 brought up that lingering regret.
I spoke to Michael off and on at my previous I.T. job. It was, however, most always when I was on the phone troubleshooting hardware or software issues and needed an immediate answer in a quick attempt to get the caller off my phone.
Though I didn’t attempt to get to know him on a more personal level, I was able, seeing since my cubicle was right near his, to make a good enough assessment that Michael was a Hell of a nice guy.
He was always smiling and upbeat and never lost his patience with anyone no matter how moronic the idiot on the other end of the phone was.
I got to know Michael more this past year by connecting with him on Facebook. Actually, he connected with me sometime last year.
Michael was always posting things on Facebook. When he one day wrote on his page how his girlfriend said yes when he proposed to her, I was happy for him, if not a little jealous and envious because I have yet to find a significant other.
Perhaps in my case, that’s all my fault because I haven’t bothered to go looking and the times I have searched, I have found they were already attached to someone else. That’s what makes the Oscar nominated film, Up In the Air, in particular, the ending when George Clooney’s Ryan Bingham learns the real truth about the woman he falls in love with all the more depressing, if you’ve seen it.
As I browsed through Michael’s Facebook page the past few days, which sadly now resembles a memorial guestbook people sign at wakes with comments of condolences from friends and family members, I took note of one comment Michael said on his page back in late December last year.
“If you ever get bored just go out in public and make small talk with a stranger. You just might get a kick out of it. I know I do sometimes. People are amazing!!”
I don’t believe for one minute Michael was lying. That’s just the type of person he was. He had that kind of friendly, easygoing personality who wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone, even if he just met them.
It’s that kind of magnetic personality that would have made Michael a perfect candidate if he planned on going into journalism.
It was by mere accident when I spoke with him briefly online through AOL’s instant messaging back in November 2009. We briefly argued politics, Obama, "Dubya," and catching each other up on our latest jobs. I was about to sign off AOL when Michael suddenly asked me for advice on how to get into writing and getting himself published. He said he had a knack for writing opinionated political type columns.
I thought to myself, all this time I thought he was going for a corporate career working for some company's Information Technologies department either doing troubleshooting or training. I even gave him the Dallas County Community College District's website to check for I.T. job postings which are listed every Friday.
I told him thanks to the Internet, anyone can write their own blog. If he was, however, looking to actually get himself published, then he’d have to go back to school, major in journalism, and write for the college newspaper.
Michael said he had been considering going to back to school. I told him about how I write brief film reviews and sometimes columns for the Blitz Weekly, a local publication in the Dallas area and gave him the editor’s contact information. I told him they are always looking for stuff to publish and the possibility existed that if he has anything he’s written in regards to sports, food, entertainment, politics, or anything pertaining to “male only” issues, the editor might consider running them in a future issue.
Michael never contacted them.
A couple months later, I got an invite from him on Facebook letting me know he was having a get together on a Saturday, a few days after his 36th birthday Jan. 14 and invited all the former employees and managers. Unfortunately the invite was too short notice for me to get the day off work. Like most everyone that knew him, especially those who knew him better than I did, the thought never crossed my mind that if I had gone, that that would have been the last time I had seen him.
Now that he is gone in what is a life unfinished, I am left wondering what kind of promising future Michael might have had if he had chosen writing.
What kinds of opinionated columns would he have published?
In his instant message to me back in November last year before signing off, Michael wrote if he gets let go from his current I.T. job, “Maybe I can take up writing... but I would just piss off everyone and have no readers by the time my 1st article was done…lol.”
©2/25/10
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
In terms of visuals and casting, Wolfman's howl is better than its bite
The Wolfman «««
R, 102m., 2010
Cast & Credits: Benicio Del Toro (Lawrence Talbot), Anthony Hopkins (Sir John Talbot), Emily Blunt (Gwen Conliffe), Hugo Weaving (Abberline), Art Malik (Singh), Geraldine Chaplin (Maleva). Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self based on the 1941 motion picture screenplay by Curt Siodmak. Directed by Joe Johnston.
There is a lot to like about director Joe Johnston’s faithful remake of the 1941 horror classic, which starred Lon Chaney, Jr. Like the original, the new version takes place in Great Britain in the late 1800s. The forests still look ominous at night and when there is daylight, you never see the sun.
The casting is perfect with Anthony Hopkins as eccentric millionaire father Sir John Talbot. Talbot’s faithful servant, Singh (Art Malik), is the only other person besides his master who resides in a candle lit, multiple roomed estate, who may be hiding a dark secret about some monster who’s been slaughtering people in the dead of night throughout the countryside. Some of the townspeople think it’s a madman. Others think it’s a wild bear.
Benicio Del Toro, with his tall menacing frame and wooden cane, looks every bit out of place as Hopkins’ son and Shakespearean actor Lawrence Talbot. When we first see him, he is on stage enacting a scene from Hamlet. I have to wonder if the character’s name and occupation was a nod to Lawrence Olivier who throughout his acting career did many Shakespearean film adaptations that included Hamlet.
When Lawrence returns to his native homeland to help bury and investigate the grisly death of his brother, he meets his kin’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). She is the mourning damsel in distress who thinks she can tame whatever is out there in a tragic story that bears similarities to Beauty and the Beast. Lastly, there is Hugo Weaving’s Inspector Aberline on the hunt with silver bullets in hand.
There is no doubt the one reason The Wolfman was remade was to improve upon the visual effects from over sixty years ago. Thankfully, in a time where filmmakers put a major emphasis on the million-dollar computer generated effects like Avatar, The Wolfman’s CGI images don’t steal the show. Unlike, John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London (1981) where the lead character graphically resembled a four legged creature the moment the full moon came out, when Del Toro turns into the wolfman, he is exactly just that; half man – half wolf. Nor does Lawrence feel compelled to strip off all his clothes prior to going on his rampages. Whenever he returns to human form, Lawrence is always seen with remnants of his original clothing.
If I have any real complaint with the film, which is also its greatest weakness, it is that for a horror movie that’s meant to scare audiences, there is very little suspense. Watching hunters and other citizens becoming the hunted as they try to escape the wolfman, I just knew it would be a matter of time before the creature caught up to them. There is nothing shocking watching such scenes where one moment, the prey is standing around with a gun and the moment the intended victim makes one step, he is attacked out of nowhere.
The other weakness is for a horror movie meant to play along the lines of a tragedy, The Wolfman suffers from the same ailment other adaptations of the classic horror novels Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein have undergone. We don’t get any feeling for the tragic characters. In all three stories of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman, there have always been a damsel in distress involved and all three lead characters went through some life altering event that caused them go to off the deep end.
Dracula lost his fiancée upon returning from battle and chose immortality. Frankenstein tried to be human and realized he was a monster. Not even his creator could make him happy giving him a bride. In The Wolfman, Lawrence’s life is plagued by tragedy since childhood, beginning with the mysterious death of his mother by something out there. I will find it to be a successful feat if any filmmaker can turn one of these classics into a suspenseful, emotional roller coaster ride one day.
Still, I cannot help but admire the overall foreboding look of The Wolfman in terms of visuals and the perfect casting. Call it the film’s howl. This is a real close call but I am recommending The Wolfman more so for its “howl” than its lack of bite when it comes the film’s inability to leave me on the edge of my seat.
R, 102m., 2010
Cast & Credits: Benicio Del Toro (Lawrence Talbot), Anthony Hopkins (Sir John Talbot), Emily Blunt (Gwen Conliffe), Hugo Weaving (Abberline), Art Malik (Singh), Geraldine Chaplin (Maleva). Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self based on the 1941 motion picture screenplay by Curt Siodmak. Directed by Joe Johnston.
There is a lot to like about director Joe Johnston’s faithful remake of the 1941 horror classic, which starred Lon Chaney, Jr. Like the original, the new version takes place in Great Britain in the late 1800s. The forests still look ominous at night and when there is daylight, you never see the sun.
The casting is perfect with Anthony Hopkins as eccentric millionaire father Sir John Talbot. Talbot’s faithful servant, Singh (Art Malik), is the only other person besides his master who resides in a candle lit, multiple roomed estate, who may be hiding a dark secret about some monster who’s been slaughtering people in the dead of night throughout the countryside. Some of the townspeople think it’s a madman. Others think it’s a wild bear.
Benicio Del Toro, with his tall menacing frame and wooden cane, looks every bit out of place as Hopkins’ son and Shakespearean actor Lawrence Talbot. When we first see him, he is on stage enacting a scene from Hamlet. I have to wonder if the character’s name and occupation was a nod to Lawrence Olivier who throughout his acting career did many Shakespearean film adaptations that included Hamlet.
When Lawrence returns to his native homeland to help bury and investigate the grisly death of his brother, he meets his kin’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). She is the mourning damsel in distress who thinks she can tame whatever is out there in a tragic story that bears similarities to Beauty and the Beast. Lastly, there is Hugo Weaving’s Inspector Aberline on the hunt with silver bullets in hand.
There is no doubt the one reason The Wolfman was remade was to improve upon the visual effects from over sixty years ago. Thankfully, in a time where filmmakers put a major emphasis on the million-dollar computer generated effects like Avatar, The Wolfman’s CGI images don’t steal the show. Unlike, John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London (1981) where the lead character graphically resembled a four legged creature the moment the full moon came out, when Del Toro turns into the wolfman, he is exactly just that; half man – half wolf. Nor does Lawrence feel compelled to strip off all his clothes prior to going on his rampages. Whenever he returns to human form, Lawrence is always seen with remnants of his original clothing.
If I have any real complaint with the film, which is also its greatest weakness, it is that for a horror movie that’s meant to scare audiences, there is very little suspense. Watching hunters and other citizens becoming the hunted as they try to escape the wolfman, I just knew it would be a matter of time before the creature caught up to them. There is nothing shocking watching such scenes where one moment, the prey is standing around with a gun and the moment the intended victim makes one step, he is attacked out of nowhere.
The other weakness is for a horror movie meant to play along the lines of a tragedy, The Wolfman suffers from the same ailment other adaptations of the classic horror novels Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein have undergone. We don’t get any feeling for the tragic characters. In all three stories of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman, there have always been a damsel in distress involved and all three lead characters went through some life altering event that caused them go to off the deep end.
Dracula lost his fiancée upon returning from battle and chose immortality. Frankenstein tried to be human and realized he was a monster. Not even his creator could make him happy giving him a bride. In The Wolfman, Lawrence’s life is plagued by tragedy since childhood, beginning with the mysterious death of his mother by something out there. I will find it to be a successful feat if any filmmaker can turn one of these classics into a suspenseful, emotional roller coaster ride one day.
Still, I cannot help but admire the overall foreboding look of The Wolfman in terms of visuals and the perfect casting. Call it the film’s howl. This is a real close call but I am recommending The Wolfman more so for its “howl” than its lack of bite when it comes the film’s inability to leave me on the edge of my seat.
©2/12/10
Monday, February 1, 2010
Gibson's welcome back performance not enough to save Edge of Darkness
Edge of Darkness ««½
R, 117m., 2010
Cast & Credits: Mel Gibson (Thomas Craven), Ray Winstone (Jedburgh), Danny Huston (Jack Bennett), Bojana Novakovic (Emma Craven), Shawn Roberts (Burnham), David Aaron Baker (Millroy), Jay O. Sanders (Whitehouse), Denis O’Hare (Moore), Damian Young (Senator Jim Pine), Caterina Scorsone (Melissa), Frank Grillo (Agent One), Wayne Duvall (Chief of Police), Gabrielle Popa (Young Emma). Screenplay by William Monhan and Andrew Bovell based on the television series “Edge of Darkness” by Troy Kennedy-Martin. Directed by Martin Campbell.
I compare the desire to see Edge of Darkness with the same enthusiasm people might have as a reason to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009). The reasons are three-fold. I came to the conclusion "Dr. Parnassus" would either appeal to those interested in seeing Heath Ledger’s final performance, to those who like director Terry Gilliam’s fantasy films, and finally, to those who like art house type movies.
By comparison, mine, if not most people’s interest to see Edge of Darkness would be to see if Gibson could still bring in audiences despite all the personal turmoil we’ve heard about him the past eight years in the tabloids. The other would be in hopes of seeing him again playing the righteous good-guy intent on delivering justice to the bad guys his way.
When Gibson’s Detective Thomas Craven feeds one potential suspect the threatening line, “You had better decide whether you’re hangin’ on the cross, or bangin’ in the nails,” the quote should be enough to tell us blood is going to be spilled and it won’t just be Craven’s.
I am fairly certain audiences won’t walk away disappointed. The best thing Edge of Darkness offers is Gibson’s poignant portrayal of a grieving father and police detective out to avenge his daughter’s murder. The most memorable moments are the one’s showing Gibson's character in emotional pain as he is speaking with the ghost of his dead daughter (Bojanna Novakovic). Or as he travels down memory lane to recalling the time as a young kid, she tried mimicking him shaving in the morning.
I just wish Edge of Darkness had been a better movie to mark Gibson’s “welcome back” performance, or that maybe the villains were sinister enough I would have been happy to see them get their comeuppance. The film, to my surprise and perhaps disappointment, is actually based on a 1985 British mini-series of the same title with the exact same plot. The difference is like last year’s newspaper film with Russell Crowe, State of Play (also based on a British mini-series), what we get here is a much watered down version; a story that took over six hours to tell is told here in two.
It’s bad enough this movie is a remake. What’s worse is how it reeks of familiar storylines past, especially if you were to apply the plot as a case of investigative journalism. Ask yourself how many times have you seen a movie where a detective whose only family left are either their daughter, son, or wife who are killed in a drive-by shooting. Then in the following scene, which occurs most likely the next day, the lone detective shows up for work and is not only told by his commanding officer that maybe he should take a few days off, but that he probably should not be working this particular case. Would you be surprised if you heard him actually follow his superior’s advice? Would you really want to see a film where the lead character steps aside and let his fellow co-workers handle the case?
I know I have seen this kind of scenario play out before. Perhaps the reason why I can’t think of any movies that have done this is maybe they were just as predictable as this one.
As for my earlier comment about how the plot in Edge of Darkness could relate to any other movie involving investigative journalism, it’s true. Take out the Craven character as a cop and have him as an investigative reporter working for a financially troubled newspaper who finds out the murder of a police detective’s daughter is tied to the company she worked for or some government cover-up is involved, and we get a story out of either All the President’s Men (1976) or The Pelican Brief (1993).
Watching Edge of Darkness, I started thinking about “Deep Throat”, the shadowy character Hal Holbrook played in All the President’s Men who met Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward in dimly lit underground parking garages. The reason is because by comparison we get a shadowy character just like Deep Throat named Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) who is the kind of guy desperate corporate executives hire to make problems go away. The difference is instead of meeting his contact in underground garages like Deep Throat did, Jedburgh meets Craven out in the open sitting on a park bench drinking a glass of wine.
You might notice I haven’t quite gone into much detail about the plot. Perhaps I don’t need to. I think I threw out enough bones to give you an idea of where this murder investigation is heading. All there is left for me to tell you is yes, the story does involve a crooked corporation working for the United States government. And there are politicians, CEOs, and shady lawyers involved who secretly meet out on rooftops and who, as they are about to leave, tell each other neither of them was ever there. There are henchmen in dark suits who follow Craven in black SUVs.
We meet characters who knew Craven’s daughter personally, and are afraid to talk out of fear their lives will be in danger. There is even a lowly television reporter who midway through the film, rushes up to Craven with cameraman in tow determined to ask him how he feels about losing his daughter.
Given that Craven has lost the one thing that meant most to him, the minute he asks for her business card, I knew where the final conclusion of this movie was headed.
©2/1/10
R, 117m., 2010
Cast & Credits: Mel Gibson (Thomas Craven), Ray Winstone (Jedburgh), Danny Huston (Jack Bennett), Bojana Novakovic (Emma Craven), Shawn Roberts (Burnham), David Aaron Baker (Millroy), Jay O. Sanders (Whitehouse), Denis O’Hare (Moore), Damian Young (Senator Jim Pine), Caterina Scorsone (Melissa), Frank Grillo (Agent One), Wayne Duvall (Chief of Police), Gabrielle Popa (Young Emma). Screenplay by William Monhan and Andrew Bovell based on the television series “Edge of Darkness” by Troy Kennedy-Martin. Directed by Martin Campbell.
I compare the desire to see Edge of Darkness with the same enthusiasm people might have as a reason to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009). The reasons are three-fold. I came to the conclusion "Dr. Parnassus" would either appeal to those interested in seeing Heath Ledger’s final performance, to those who like director Terry Gilliam’s fantasy films, and finally, to those who like art house type movies.
By comparison, mine, if not most people’s interest to see Edge of Darkness would be to see if Gibson could still bring in audiences despite all the personal turmoil we’ve heard about him the past eight years in the tabloids. The other would be in hopes of seeing him again playing the righteous good-guy intent on delivering justice to the bad guys his way.
When Gibson’s Detective Thomas Craven feeds one potential suspect the threatening line, “You had better decide whether you’re hangin’ on the cross, or bangin’ in the nails,” the quote should be enough to tell us blood is going to be spilled and it won’t just be Craven’s.
I am fairly certain audiences won’t walk away disappointed. The best thing Edge of Darkness offers is Gibson’s poignant portrayal of a grieving father and police detective out to avenge his daughter’s murder. The most memorable moments are the one’s showing Gibson's character in emotional pain as he is speaking with the ghost of his dead daughter (Bojanna Novakovic). Or as he travels down memory lane to recalling the time as a young kid, she tried mimicking him shaving in the morning.
I just wish Edge of Darkness had been a better movie to mark Gibson’s “welcome back” performance, or that maybe the villains were sinister enough I would have been happy to see them get their comeuppance. The film, to my surprise and perhaps disappointment, is actually based on a 1985 British mini-series of the same title with the exact same plot. The difference is like last year’s newspaper film with Russell Crowe, State of Play (also based on a British mini-series), what we get here is a much watered down version; a story that took over six hours to tell is told here in two.
It’s bad enough this movie is a remake. What’s worse is how it reeks of familiar storylines past, especially if you were to apply the plot as a case of investigative journalism. Ask yourself how many times have you seen a movie where a detective whose only family left are either their daughter, son, or wife who are killed in a drive-by shooting. Then in the following scene, which occurs most likely the next day, the lone detective shows up for work and is not only told by his commanding officer that maybe he should take a few days off, but that he probably should not be working this particular case. Would you be surprised if you heard him actually follow his superior’s advice? Would you really want to see a film where the lead character steps aside and let his fellow co-workers handle the case?
I know I have seen this kind of scenario play out before. Perhaps the reason why I can’t think of any movies that have done this is maybe they were just as predictable as this one.
As for my earlier comment about how the plot in Edge of Darkness could relate to any other movie involving investigative journalism, it’s true. Take out the Craven character as a cop and have him as an investigative reporter working for a financially troubled newspaper who finds out the murder of a police detective’s daughter is tied to the company she worked for or some government cover-up is involved, and we get a story out of either All the President’s Men (1976) or The Pelican Brief (1993).
Watching Edge of Darkness, I started thinking about “Deep Throat”, the shadowy character Hal Holbrook played in All the President’s Men who met Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward in dimly lit underground parking garages. The reason is because by comparison we get a shadowy character just like Deep Throat named Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) who is the kind of guy desperate corporate executives hire to make problems go away. The difference is instead of meeting his contact in underground garages like Deep Throat did, Jedburgh meets Craven out in the open sitting on a park bench drinking a glass of wine.
You might notice I haven’t quite gone into much detail about the plot. Perhaps I don’t need to. I think I threw out enough bones to give you an idea of where this murder investigation is heading. All there is left for me to tell you is yes, the story does involve a crooked corporation working for the United States government. And there are politicians, CEOs, and shady lawyers involved who secretly meet out on rooftops and who, as they are about to leave, tell each other neither of them was ever there. There are henchmen in dark suits who follow Craven in black SUVs.
We meet characters who knew Craven’s daughter personally, and are afraid to talk out of fear their lives will be in danger. There is even a lowly television reporter who midway through the film, rushes up to Craven with cameraman in tow determined to ask him how he feels about losing his daughter.
Given that Craven has lost the one thing that meant most to him, the minute he asks for her business card, I knew where the final conclusion of this movie was headed.
©2/1/10
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