REVIEW/SPOILER:Attack of the Clones I so wanted to like this movie. Apparently so do a lot of other people, cause I simply do not know why this has gotten any good reviews. Ok yeah, there are some good special effects, Yoda's fight at the end is pretty fun, JarJar's part is mercifully short, and there are some decent action scenes. The actual story or plot is interesting and pleasantly twisted. But the acting is SOOOO Bad! And even worse -- the writing. It's criminal that so much money can be spent to such poor effect.
And not all the special effects are that great, ex. when annikin rides the cattle in the field, the cattle just look plain awful.
Questions though:
How did Amidala know they were headed for a hanger after she fell out of the transport?
How come the Jedi are so blind to just plain old politics. You'd think their wisdom MIGHT rely on something other than just the Force.
How come the battle techniques of these advanced cultures are so dumb? They are fighting 12th century battles with 24th century weapons (ironicly the fake preview that came out a long time ago wasn't that faroff with its altered Braveheart scene).
Why does Amidala even like Annikan? She's older, why doesn't she see him as a childish, arrogant asshole that he is? Surely she's met more interesting people.
What does "I die a little every day" even mean exactly?
Any answers, or additional questions would be welcome :-)

RANT/REVIEW/SPOILER: X-Files is done and gone. Hurray. The last episode was a rather pathetic attempt at court drama. And Mulder has now gone from Signs to Sixth Sense and can see and talk to dead people. Hurray for him. They appear to now be waiting for the 2nd coming to stave off the imminent invasion by aliens. This I assume is going to happen in the second coming of an X-File Movie. Egads I will have one last review.

I love flying, looking down on the world. Flew to see my sister last weekend. Cool stuff around Philadelphia: bizarre hills, glacier remains, morraines, I think, long long narrow hills that look like offa's dyke or some other ancient, no grassy mound of a wall. they are wooded and in between they are full of farmers' fields, long rectangles, triangles of green & brown, joined by roads that bounce up and down through the hillls.

lots of big old quarries as well, and a golf course under construction, showing its true face, bare ugly brown dirt.

islands off CT look positively yummy, to be in a kayak or outrigger, cruising, doing loops and exploring.

from 30,000 feet
the earth is all lines and angles
bits of fractals spreading
this way and that
ravines, rivers, edges of
oceans, forests
interrupted by humans
straight lines and gentle curves
squares and circles.

at 30,000 ft
clearcuts are like wounds on a dog
the fur shaved off
a lowered reservoir
revealing a bikini line

RANT and/or Public Service Announcement. So I installed OS X recently; which I happen to like a lot -- somewhat suprisingly! Being an old mac hand, I was prepared to grumble a lot. Not that there isn't anything to grumble about, but overall, I'm impressed.

BUT! The damn thing had a major meltdown last friday night. Kernel Panics galore! Did not make me very happy, and there seemed to be very little good advice available. MacAdam, a local SF mac store, told me to reformat my drive and reinstall, Apple gave them no better information! But then the guy said, "The panics still might happen," which tipped me off to keep looking for answers.

And lo! Buried in discussion boards on Apple, I found my answer. My mouse had died! OS X is a nice stable operating system for the most part, but it can't handle the damn mouse failing. Geeze! A new mouse, and all those Kernel Panics went away.

So if you have one and see com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMouse, try changing your mouse!

Book: Years of Rice and Salt, KS Robinson. It's good. not quite up to the Mars Trilogy, but better than Antartica I think. The strongest part of the book is the beginning I think, where he is exploring cultures that are known. There are a couple of periods which seem a tad forced, but he pulls it back in by the end, and it ends well. Always good when I close a book with a thoughtful, hmph.

Movie: the Man Who Wasn't There. I love the Coen brothers because they are always doing something different. I mean not completely different, they are all Coen brother movies clearly and this was no different. It probably does not fall within my favorites, but I liked it. Mainly for the atmospherics, the lighting and cinematography were amazing. I think they have a way of reinstilling cliched images with new value. The scene where the car flies through the air is great. Must have seen a gazillion cars fly through the air by now, but this one was like I'd never seen it before. Great performances from BB Thornton, the pansy, and the guy who plays the lawyer ( name escapes me, sorry ).

RANT, spoiler: So the X-Files. I'd stopped watching it the season before Mulder went AWOL, already it was heading downhill. i was lured back in with this episode countdown to the bitter end. The truth in sight? Could it get better or worse? Worse! The episode where they finished off the Lone Gunman was one of the first pieces of TV that I have ever seen. I couldn't figure out if the acting or the writing was worse. And this past weeks, the plots have holes so large you could drive a semi through them. How in god's name does someone get into the FBI academy on an assumed identity who clearly has mental problems. Isn't there a little something called background checks that they do? And then! John's son luke killed by a mafia guy who, lo and behold, has been bribing the new assistant director who clearly is a bad guy as well ( could they pick a more likely villain as an actor ), now we have proof. And why was he on the take? Who knows! Where's the truth i ask you?


Clearly, if it is anywhere, it ain't on the X-Files.