Category: All

All posts across the whole website belong to this category. They might also belong to some other categories as well, but this one holds all of them. Hence the descriptive name – All.

Deja Vu

When I am looking for a movie to rent or watch in the cinema, I usually check a few things about the title – IMDB rating, cast, director, genres, awards, etc.  I try not to read any reviews or plot descriptions, but everything else I usually do.  Why am I doing this?  Because there are so many crap movies out there that are not worse spending any time or money on.  However, there are a few actors, who are like good brands.  If I see that actor on a DVD cover, I will rent the movie without any other additional information. I might not even check the title of the film, or try to remember if I saw it before or not.

Denzel Washington is one of such actors. So, when I saw his face on a box of “Deja Vu“, I rented it right away.  And, once again, I was right.  The film is excellent. It has all to it – excellent story with a lot of twists, excellent acting, suspense, action, great photography, humor, food for thought, and so on and so forth.  An extra point goes to those people who picked the cast.  Everyone was good.  But Paula Patton was really beautiful. Really.

If you are sensitive to spoilers, then don’t read this paragraph.  There was a scene in the movie, where an FBI surveillance team is spying on this lady.  They are watching her on a huge screen.  She is at home, getting dressed or something.  But the way she moves around, the way she looks, the way she smiles, it’s so beautiful that they are all stunned.  They are watching her in silence for a few moments.  Almost without blinking.  Well, when the scene is over, I realized that it was like I was there, together with them, watching her.  Truly amazing.  It was a long time since I watched someone like that in the movie.

Anyway.  The film is really good and if you like other Denzel Washington movies with action, drama, and crime, “Deja Vu” is truly recommended.  9 out of 10. Solid.

The Departed

How many celebrities can you imagine involved in a single movie?  Try the cast of “The Departed“.  Directed by Martin Scorsese.  Main roles played by Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and more.  Even one of the co-producers was Brad Pitt himself. There was practically no way to spoil this film.  So, no wonder it won 4 oscars plus a whole bunch of other awards and nominations.

Did I like this film?  Yes.  It was very good.  I liked the story and the way it was told.  I liked acting a lot.  Leonardo did especially well.  And Baldwin.  And Nicholson of course.  And the other ones too.

But.  Something is missing in this film. I can’t put my finger on it though.  I’d rate this film as a solid 8.5, or maybe even 9 out of 10.  But, it was so very close to 10, to a perfect movie, but it’s not.  If you have any idea of what is missing, please share in the comments.  I’d really like to know.  Because the rest of it is so good…

Catching up

Once again, so many things and so little time… Here is a catch up post with a few highlights:

  • Olga and Maxim are still in Russia.  I miss them a lot, but, considering the circumstances, they should rather be there than here.  Still, miss them a lot.
  • Our cat Cappa has been sterilized. I know it’s for the better and all, but I’m still filled with guilt.  It’s not right to do this, even if it is for the better.  That was the first and last time that I did it.
  • I am still going to the gym.  Lost a bit of weight (about 3 kilos) in the last couple of weeks. Exercises are still boring and painful, as they always were.
  • I am doing a lot of training at work.  At least 2 hours per week in group sessions, and at least another 4 hours in individual ones.  Topics cover everything from how computers work, through PHP/CSS/MySQL/HTML, to SEO and web promotion.  It’s nice to see some sparks.  Not fires yet, but we aren’t finished yet.
  • I still write plenty of code.  In the last week there was a huge leap from WordPress and home made systems to CakePHP framework. This framework is truly wonderful, but I have a lot to learn about programming MVC-kind. Including some of the terminology.
  • I am watching a lot of movies. There happen to be a DVD rental right next to our office. I am so out of touch with movies world that I can grab a handful of movies, that I haven’t heard anything behind, in less than a minute.  I’ll post some short reviews right after this post is online.
  • I have totally abandoned photography, which I am truly sad of. I need to get back to it one of these days.  Especially now that I got invited as an official photographer to one of the upcoming events.  More on that a bit later.

That’s my life in a nutshell.

Back to the gym. Again.

Finally, my Christmas / New Year break is over.  The gym was closing for a couple of weeks, but, as always, I had some troubles getting back to my P.T.  The resulting two and a half month break devastated all my previous achievements…

Before I left the gym for Christmas, I weighted about 109 kilos and could run 3 kilometers for the first run, and another 1 kilometer after a short break.  Today, when I got back to the gym, I weighted an ugly 116.5 kilograms.  My running was even worse.  After half a kilometer down the way, I noticed a really old woman in black coat with a hood over her head running nearby me.  When I approached 1 kilometer, this woman picked up a really scary scythe, which was standing against the wall nearby.  At that precise moment, I decided to stop.

I went downstairs for some belly pain.  Here I managed to catch up with my previous results of 4 attempts of 30 exercises (whatever they are called), and then another 3 attempts of 10 other exercises.  I had to take longer breaks though, and it was more painful than I remember it used to be.

Going back upstairs for the second run, I felt really tired.  And noticed that the woman in black was still there, and still with the scythe in her hands.  She looked like she was waiting for someone, so I decided to skip it this time.

Overall summary: 116.5 kilograms of fat, bones, and flash.  1 kilometer jog is almost fatal.  That will need a lot of work to get back to the previous state.  And considering that the previous stage was far from perfect, it feels like there is really a lot of work ahead of me… Ouch.

No Country For Old Man

I went to see “No Country For Old Man“.  I’ve heard some buzz about this film – with it getting major ratings and collecting a few Oscars – but I never read too deep into it or even watched a trailer.

The movie turned out to be pretty good indeed.  An interesting story, nice story telling, good photography, pretty good acting on all parts, and so on.  But what really captured my attention was the quietness.  This is probably the most quiet movie I’ve seen in years.   Even though it has a few gun shots here and there, I was struck by an almost total absence of soundtrack, as well as how quiet actors are speaking. It almost sounded like real life, where people don’t argue, shout, or kill each other every 15 seconds…

This quietness wasn’t only in the sound.  It was also in visuals and acting.   Many modern films, especially those that involve guns, choose to go for stunning special effects with bits and pieces flying around, smoke covering up things, etc.   None of that happened in this film.  There were some special effects, but they were very moderate and appropriate, without destructing attention.  Same goes for acting.  Although there are some high profile actors, such as Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson, they aren’t shining.  They do their job and do it well, again, without stealing any attention from the film itself.

I rated the film as 8 out of 10.