On Saturday night I went with Valerie to the movies. We couldn’t really agree on which movie to see, as she wanted to see Sex in the City, and I really wasn’t up for that at all. I went to see Wanted instead, which by the way was awesome. We decided we’d meet up afterwards to go see Get Smart, as the AMC really isn’t too good at making sure you only see one movie.

So, Wanted features similar effects to the Matrix, but it just looks awesome. The story is a little far fetched and spoils it a little, but visually it’s fantastic. Definitely worth going to see.

When I met Valerie afterwards to see the late showing of Get Smart, we couldn’t find the theatre we were looking for. We spent about 20 minutes looking around and just as we’re about to give up … blackout!

The whole cinema gets a powercut and it’s pitch black. Of course, it’s America, so there’s a lot of screaming and everyone get’s their cellphones out. Some cheeky people try asking for free popcorn as the emergency lights come on. After about 10 minutes of confusion, the staff make the decision to evacuate the building. So, free passes are issued which are good for one movie and, of course, I picked mine up without a hint of remorse.

We went back to the movies last night to see Get Smart, hoping to see Wall-e afterwards. Get Smart was funny, but nothing spectacular. It’s Steve Carell so it’s obviously going to be funny. I was too tired after the movie to sit through another 2 hours of film so we went home in the end. Maybe another time for Wall-e.

Pride 08

This past Sunday was SF Pride, celebrating LGBT San Francisco. As usual, Market Street was closed off to allow the parade to go past and 500,000 came out (no pun intended) to see it. It started off with the tradition of ‘Dykes on Bikes’, and there were a lot of people dressed up in wedding clothes, reflecting the recent change in the law that legalizes gay marriage in the state of California (one of only 2 that allow it).

The weather was fairly crap, mostly due to the wildfires that have been raging all over the state causing smoke and smog to gravitate through the city. Luckily, some strong winds have appeared and blown most of the smoke away.

I was only able to stay for about 1 hour at the parade as I had to go to work, but there was plenty to see before I left. The mayor even made and appearance as he waved to his minions from his convertible. My camera battery died, so I have no pictures as yet.

Cindy Lauper was singing at Civic Center after the parade, which I suppose was no big thing to miss. There was a religious group had gathered to make it very clear that the parade was a complete abomination, which is cool that they were representing their views but it seemed very poorly done, and turned me away more than anything. It really was like a ‘let he that is without sin cast the first stone’ scenario. It almost seemed as if this church were associating themselves with the whole ‘God Hates Fags’ campaign. The fact of the matter is that I’m guilty of many things myself, homosexuality is maybe not one of them, but it puts me in no position to judge or preach. Matthew 7:3-5 and all that.

On a lighter note, work was boring as usual.

I went last Friday night to see the new Indy flick, and I was obviously very excited about it. I’d heard good reports from some friends, and had just rewatched the original trilogy to get myself in the mood for the ensuing action. The producers kept very hush hush about the movie, and I only saw the trailer once before going to see it.

So I arrived at the movie theater (or ‘cinema’ as most normal people call it) and obviously didn’t get there on time. A bunch of people must have bought tickets for another movie and snuck in or something, because I got there and there were no seats left, barring two in the very front row. The front row is so ridiculously close to the screen that you can only see part of the movie, and it makes you sick, so I opted for the floor behind the first seating block. Not the way I’d planned on watching a highly anticipated movie. Indeed, by the time all the obligatory Kung Fu Panda trailers were over, my arse was fast asleep.

So the movie begins way more low-key than I’d expected. No trademark red and yellow Indiana Jones text, just boring type. The first few scenes from the movie are decent enough until you actually see Harrison Ford. That was a weird experience.

My goodness, he’s practically a grandfather. The white and grey hair, the trousers pulled way up like an old man, Indy’s trademark stubble that looks more like laziness than action hero. That for me was a huge disappointment. It was great to see Indie kick ass once again, but it’s just not believable for me that a guy of his age could be as invincible as he was even 20 years ago.

Yes, Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones and casting anybody else in his place would be a complete desecration of the franchise, but there’s a bit of a catch 22 here. He is Indiana Jones but he’s now too old to be believable. There were obvious scenes of stunt doubles, and the stunts he obviously did do felt like he was trying to prove he could still do it. In saying all that, he’s in remarkably good shape for a man of 65.

The actual movie wasn’t a far cry from the original three. Stereotyped Ukrainian-accented Cate Blanchett is the villain, looking to solve the mystery of a crystal skull they found somewhere in South America.

I didn’t care much for the special effects in the movie either. I’ve never been a big fan of CGI as I can almost always tell when they’ve bluescreened it and it looks totally fake to me. I’m much more impressed by old school techniques where the action was real and that sense of danger made the movie all the more exciting. I grew up watching those ‘behind the movie’ shows where it shows you how they did all the stunts and the set up to get the perfect shot. Now it’s easy as pie, stick a blue canvas behind it and hire a bunch of nerds to get the same effect. A lot of the big scenes in this movie were obvious CGI, which I was very disappointed about considering the reports stating CGI would be limited.

Indy’s romantic interest from the first movie makes an appearance again, which was cool but the rest of the storyline was a little dull and frankly lacked the imagination of the other movies. By the end of the movie my arse and back were getting very sore and I was beginning to, dare I say it, get a little bored of the movie.

Overall, for a standalone movie it’s nothing special and by far the worst of the 4 movies. I can’t help but feel they should have just left it be, as the only reason I can see for making this poorly written spectacle is for the undoubted financial gain for the studio. That said, if you’re an Indy fan then I expect you’ll be disappointed but you have to see it to complete the series.

Actually, the funniest part of the night was leaving the movie theater. Sex In The City had just opened for the weekend and there was a huge line of girls all dressed up just for the movie (with reluctant boyfriends and a ton of excited gay guys). There was even security guards to maintain order. How sad.

Yesterday, about 4.30 in the afternoon I notice it’s a little hotter than usual. I check Google and this is what it tells me. It’s absolutely roasting. In fact I think it’s a record for San Francisco, it’s usually sunny but never this warm. The good weather is expected to last throughout the weekend.

In other news, this weekend is shaping up to be good. The annual Bay to Breakers Race is taking place is taking place this Sunday, which draws huge amounts of people. It’s a 12k race from Embarcadero on the east (the Bay), to the breakers at Ocean Beach on the west side of the city. Of course there’s all the hills on the way which makes it considerably more difficult than it sounds.

The reason it gets a lot of attention, aside from being the longest consecutively running race in the world, is that it attracts more people either in costumes or in nothing at all than actual runners. Do a search for Bay to Breakers on Flickr and you’ll see what I’m talking about. There’s thousands of people dressed as Elvis and other things, and about the same about turn up for the race in the nude. Interesting.

Also interesting is that my friend Paul turned up in SF the other day. He’s on a ’round the world’ trip and has been mainly visiting Asia and Australia so far, but he arrived here a few days ago and is staying about a week. He says I have an American accent now, but I think he’s just taking the piss a bit. At least, I hope he is…

Valerie attempted to cut his hair last night with my $5 shaver from Walgreens, but with no success. It was a combination of his hair being a total mess and my shaver being of expectedly crap quality. I advised him to visit my favourite little hairdressers in Chinatown, where they only charge $5. They don’t understand English but they can interpret a ’shave my head’ gesture.

I have both Saturday and Sunday off this week. For most of you on placement or at university, this is nothing unusual so be thankful. My last weekend off was about a week after coming home from Hawaii. So about 5 months ago. Rejoice!

Prince Caspian comes out today so I will go see it. I’m gearing up for disappointment, since it got a pretty bad review from the SF Chronicle, which is generally quite accurate at reviews. I’m more looking forward to Indiana Jones next week, for which I purchased a replica ‘Indi’ hat to wear to the special occasion. Expect pictures.

Those of you that visit Digg.com on a regular basis will no doubt have come across today, but otherwise, I give you Homeless James Bond. Kind of a James Bond for San Francisco!

There’s also a sequel that you can see here, and also check out Operation Kitty Calender which is hilarious too!

Yesterday was fun.

Work

I started the day quite badly. Sunday night I worked the late shift at work, answering the calls until 10pm, then I worked the early shift on Monday which means answering from 6am. I forgot to turn my phone off between 10 and 6 and in the middle of the night, someone called to cancel their tour for Monday due to illness. 2am in the morning I answered my phone thinking it was 6am. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night so I arrived at work exhausted before I even started.

Playstation

But I got off work at 4.30pm and walked up to Mission St. I had been checking on Craigslist for a Playstation 2 just so I would have something to do if it was wet outside and I was totally bored (which thankfully doesn’t happen often here). There was a guy in Mission selling one with a ton of games and controllers or $100, so I needed to take the 14 bus into the Mission.

Stupid me, I took the wrong bus. I didn’t know there were 3 14 buses!

I ended up in outer mission, which is miles away. I eventually found my way back and got the Playstation, but without half the games. They were mostly crap. And I bargained him down on the price a bit, so I got the whole deal for $95. Tried it out this morning and it works like a charm. He also left one of the disks inside, so I got another one without even knowing it.

Free tickets to Advanced movie screening

I had to rush back downtown as I was meeting Valerie there. It was six months yesterday that we’ve been together so I planned a bit of a date. I met her (about 30 minutes late) at the Metreon, which is essentially a glorified cinema, and we waited in line for a movie that I had got free tickets to.

The movie is called ‘21‘. It’s based on a true story about a guy who is trying to get to medical school, but can’t raise the $300,000 he needs to pay the fees. His teacher notices he is very good with numbers and invites him to join the MIT Blackjack team, who use a system of counting the cards in a blackjack game to beat the dealer. Every weekend, the team flies to Vegas and uses their technique to win big at the casinos. Apparently this method of counting cards is not illegal, but casinos have strict measures in place to stop this activity.

The movie was pretty good, an intriguing story and well acted but it was a little Hollywood for my liking. There were all the cliched things, and at times it was predictable and a little fantasized which made it difficult to believe in parts.

Q&A

But by far the coolest part was that the guy who the movie is based on did a brief Q&A after the movie. He answered a lot of questions, and was very interesting. He’s basically banned from Las Vegas and can’t be within 20 ft of a blackjack table at any casino. Every casino in America knows his face and he can’t play anywhere.

The movie comes out on Friday here, and on April 11th back home, I think. It’s worth checking out if you like those sorts of movies.

Italian Food

The cinema organised some blackjack after the movie at nearby Jillian’s bar across the street, but I took Valerie to Buca di Beppo instead, which a great Italian restaurant that I went to over Christmas. It was great, I really love Italian food over here - it’s one type of restaurant that I could order almost anything off the menu and know I would like it. Usually there’s only a few things on a restaurant’s menu that I would go for. In the end we both settled for lasagna because it looked just too tasty. And it was. It was just the perfect size because I was just able to finish it and no more. Very satisfying.

Happy six months Valerie. Poor girl has been stuck with me for too long…

Ah my first Thanksgiving. What a pointless holiday.

On Wednesday I did as I planned and spent the whole day in the AMC Theatre on Van Ness, having lunch at Mel’s Drive-In first, of course (steak and eggs plus all you can eat toast…all for the bargain price of $7.95? Beat that Nobel Cafe!). I wasn’t nearly as tired at the end of it as I thought I’d be. Either way, here’s my brief movie reviews for each movie. For my UK readers, I’m not sure about release dates overseas (I don’t think the gap is as big as it used to be) but if these movies aren’t out yet over there then take my advice.

American Gangster was probably not the best movie to start with. It’s horribly gory in parts and pretty serious. I have a tendency to fall asleep during movies but this one kept me awake. It’s pretty good, good acting and lots of violence. Not really my favourite type of movie but enjoyable all the same if you like the Sopranos and that sort of thing. I missed the ending though in order to keep up with my movie schedule. A modest 7/10.

Beowulf on the other hand was the most boring, dismal display of absolute trousers that I’ve ever seen. Why such a movie was ever commissioned is beyond me. What saddens me most is that it was directed by Robert Zemeckis, who directed one of my favourite trilogies, namely Back to the Future. How he could direct something so crap warrants investigation. What’s even worse is that Angeline Jolie, my Angie, would sign up to do this movie as well. After her…mediocre…performance in Alexander I hoped she would give up on historical epics, but I guess there was a big paycheck for her. What’s probably worst about this movie is that it’s animated. I didn’t know that before I went to see it. Ok, to be fair, the animation is phenomenal and I actually didn’t notice it was animated for the first few minutes, but there really was no need for it and for animation this superb, a better script should have been chosen. So, I suppose technically Angelina Jolie never appeared in this movie…so that saves her reputation. Thin ice though, Angie. Thin ice. An extremely poor 2/10, based purely on the animation. Avoid at all costs.

Enchanted was great because I only made it through the previews then left to go see another movie. The previews were the usual Disney tripe, so that in itself was almost too much for me. I was assured by my friend that it was fantastic, and the best movie of the day. I’m a little harsh on Disney so I think I’ll leave this one unrated.

Into the Wild was my favourite movie of the day. I’ve been wanting to see it for a few weeks after reading stuff about the book it’s based on. The book is an account of the life of Chris McCandless, a college graduate who left home to travel solo across America on foot and ended up living in an abandoned bus in Alaska for several months, eating only wild berries and animals that he shot and cooked himself. It’s a really inspiring story, but definitely not uplifting as you’d expect it to be. It’s quite tragic really but the movie does a good job of staying faithful to Chris’ adventure and Emile Hirsch is excellent as the lead in a movie where he’s the only person for long periods of time. It’s certainly worth checking out but I don’t think this movie is for everyone. My friend only caught the last 30 minutes of it and hated it (too depressing apparently). In spite of that, it’s a well deserved 8/10.

Leaving my Barry Norman shoes behind, on to Thanksgiving. It was a pretty quiet affair; most people go home to see their families so there wasn’t that much to do in the city. I went to Berkeley with Arturo and Lisandro and we walked around the university campus for a while. There were no bars open in the city though so in the end we just came home and chilled out. Around 10pm, Michael (one of the French guys) had finished cooking Thanksgiving dinner so about 30 of us all sat down and had some awesome turkey and spuds. My Korean friend Sue also made some noodles and pork so I had some of that too. Not bad.

Tonight, I’m going to see Journey and KISS. Tribute bands, but still. I messed up, I thought it was last night so me and Valerie headed over to Slim’s only to find that it was tonight instead. And Valerie is going to Lake Tahoe this weekend so she can’t go. Her ticket’s on Craigslist if you’re interested.