Month: December 2004

Envy

I’ve just watched “Envy” on DVD.

I don’t know why it is categorized as comedy on IMDB. It really is not. It is a drama. With a happy ending. And it is a good drama at that. I mean, of course, two main characters are played by Ben Stiller and Jack Black, who comic actors. And one expects them to be funny. But I don’t think that this is enough to stick a comedy tag on the movie. The story behind the film is very dramatic. It is actually a classic dramatic one. And that is what counts.

Anyway, while not being a comedy, the film is still good. It is worth the time and rental money. And has nothing special for the big screen though. There is plenty of excellent acting by both Ben Stiller and Jack Black, as well as supporting Rachel Weisz and Christopher Walken. Excellent soundtrack with a theme “Envy” song and few other bits.

Verdict: 6 out of 10.

blosxom

For my company blog I decided to try a different tool. Since I am mostly using Perl for all my tasks, I thought why not to get some content management system (CMS) which is written in Perl. A quick tour around suggested blosxom. It turned out to be a pretty impressive piece of software. With minimum requirements (runs as CGI) it has all regular blogging features, and supports themes (flavours) and plugins. There are many plugins available from the site.

One of the main differences from many other CMS projects is that blosxom does not use any database. It operates on files and directories. The advantage to that is editing. One can use his favourite text editor to create posts. Categorizing and subcategorizing is also easy – just move a file from one directory to another. Plugins are available to create permanent links based on categories, dates, and titles of posts. Searching plugin is also available.

It took me less than 30 minutes to set up the blog with blosxom and configure a number of plugins. I might even consider migrating this blog to blosxom. Maybe not. But I am impressed non-the-less. Give it a try.

Leonid @ Work

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything work related to this blog. This is caused by several reasons with the main one being confidentiality. I am not always certain what is confidential and what is not. And when I am not certain I prefer to stay on the safe side. Thus no posts. That, of course, doesn’t mean that nothing interesting is happening in the office.

Today I decided that not being able to post office stories to the public blog is not a good reason not to blog them. So I started another blog which on the company’s internal network. I figured that is an excellent way of sharing knowledge and experience with colleagues, while providing more information about my activities to the management.

Now I wonder if anyone else will follow me in the company, how the company management and colleagues will react, and weather my company will consider starting a public blog anytime soon. The future will tell…

Beyond Borders

I just watched “Beyond Borders” on DVD. This is an excellent drama about two people being in love and not being able to be together. It differs somewhat from many movies that I have seen recently.

The story is excellent. It is very realistic while providing this movie touch to it. There is plenty of excellent acting in the film. Both Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen delivered excellent performance. Accompaning soundtrack was very natural and nicely integrated making the movie a lot more atmospheric and emotional.

Camera work and photography were very good. The story takes place in different parts of the world from Africa to Chechnya and the difference is shown very nicely in the film. Attention to details was also beyond average with great costume design, supporting characters and set decorations.

I probably sound like this film was perfect. Well, it wasn’t but it was very very good. It was naive and slow at places, but these moments don’t spoil the whole impression from the movie.

I’ll give it 8 out of 10. Very very good.

P.S.: In this film Angelina Jolie plays an UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) ambassador. It turns out that she is a Good Will UNHCR Ambassador in real life and that she travelled to 15 countries where she helped refugees. Impressive!

P.P.S.: There is a moment in the film when Angelina Jolie sees a starving kid who is about to die and there is this huge bird sitting beside him waiting for him to die. She than stops the truck, picks him up and saves him. It turns out that this piece is based on a real story. Kevin Carter once made a photograph of a kid and bird like the ones in the movie. He won Pulitzer prize for it. But he, unlike Angelina in the movie, didn’t pick up and save the kid (it was dangerous because of many deseases over there). But he could never forgive himself for it and few years later he committed suicide (source is here, scroll down to the part where it says “Then there is the sad story…”. I picked this up at IMDB forums.).