Month: August 2004

Legends of the Fall

Sometimes I get the impression that I have seen on the movies of this actor or that director. If something turns up that I missed, I get really surprised. It happened today again. “Legends of the Fall” was showing today on TV. And I thought that I have seen all the films with Brad Pitt.

Not only it was an unseen movie with one of my favourite actors, but it was also a very nice film. Brad Pitt wasn’t the only star – Anthony Hopkins was helping him, as well as few other celebrities. The story behind the film was dramatic enough for all of them to be able to show their talent. Many of them did, so there is plenty of excellent acting in there.

There was another surprise for me. I usually don’t like the films that are about the beginning of the 20th century. Somehow they feel distant enough not to have any comforts of the modern civilization, like the Internet, electricity, cars, and stuff; but, at the same time, they are not distant enough to be interesting like historic films about earlier ages. In this movie though, time was flattened by a more-or-less universal story that could have happened at any time. Neat.

Basically, a good story with a fair amount of drama and loads of good acting are enough for me to give 7 out of 10 to this film.

Olympics: Judo wrestling incident between Iran and Israel

Hazard, Olga, and I were talking a lot today about the recent news that said that Iranian judo wrestler boycotted Israelian wrestler because of political reasons. There are many versions in the media of what really happened. See for example, this BBC article and this blog entry.

As usual, after some time, all concrete talks that we have dive into abstraction. And for the abstraction, it doesn’t really matter what really happened. The important issue was how “OK” it is for sportsmen to boycotte other sportsmen at Olympic games. Olga and I were in the agreement this time. We thought that Olympic games carry a certain symbol and have a distinct goal of promoting world peace. For a goal like this, boycotting competitors for political reasons does the greates harm. Olympic games are the only place for many people to meet and compete against people from other places. Politics should be set aside for the Olympics.

On the other hand, Olympic games are a great financial venture and it is not always possible to be very strict, firm and hard on rules where huge amounts of money are envolved. Olympic commette has to be flexible enough to allow for the biggest and systematic sport event.

These two sides do come in confrontation sometimes. So, it is very interesting to see how Olympic commette will react for a boycotte like this. Commette’s reaction for this incident will show the lean either to the financial side of the Olympics or to the symbolic side of the Olympics. Of course, it is not possible to judge by a single action, but it is an indication never-the-less.

If I had a vote in the matter, I would ban any sportsmen that would boycotte another sportsmen over politics. I am even very much in favour of banning the whole team representing the country. Something tells me this will not happen though…

Programming games

I think that every programmer tried to create a game. At least once. When it happens, a bunch of question usually pops up in the head of the young genious. This website has few excellent answers to the most frequent questions that occur at the beginning stage, so if you feel like creating a computer game but don’t know where to start, check it out.

Apart from general things it nicely covers stuff like shortest path, artifical intelligence, objects, tiles, and much more. These are frequently useful in other applications too.

What’s the worst movie you ever seen?

There is an interesting post at Slashdot asking what was the worst movie you ever seen. Some discussions are really hilarious. Star Wars I and II, Gigli, Highlender 2, and few others are popping up more often, although some people consider Shrek and Starship Troopers to be the worst ones ever… These guys are just lucky – I’ve seen far worse.

I, myself, cannot remember the worst movie ever. I didn’t like Star Wars I and II, but they were far away from the worst movies. Gigli was pretty much OK. Hihglender 2 I cannot remember seeing at all. Matrix sequels were bad. Really. But not the worst. Few Travolta films, like Battlefield Earth and Swordfish were ugly. Not the worst again.

I guess, it is just how my memory works – it throws out the worst experiences immediately after gaining them. I’ll think more about what was the worst film that I have ever seen, but I need some time…

What was the worst movie you have ever seen?