Last night's film, while familiar, didn't tug the homesick chord nearly as much as The Dark Knight did, though.  The first Christopher Nolan Batman film had some "hey, I've been there" moments, but it was mostly very CG-affected.  The Dark Knight, by contrast, lives in Chicago.  There are no odd jumps between distant places in the city;  scenes are in consistent places, when they leave one building, they move down real streets to neighboring buildings.  It was almost disturbing, in the sense that Batman wasn't in a fantasy world, he was in a very present time and place.  The last film to live this close to me was High Fidelity, although John Cusack could have been me or any of my friends (unlike Batman).  It's a testament to Nolan's film that the familiarity didn't disrupt the suspension of disbelief.

Heath Ledger as The Joker

I loved the character arcs in Batman Begins, they felt very believable and human.  The Dark Night is much more straightforward in that sense, following the standard comic book patterns.  This film, then, works much harder to keep your attention.  The twists and turns of the plot more resemble Memento: more elements being added, takes more effort to keep up, which distracts you from the inevitability of the conclusion.  It's a great film, whether you're from Chicago or not.

on his site, he also has a proposal for american health care:

1. Every American must have full, uninterrupted health care coverage for life.
2. Private, for-profit health insurance companies must be abolished.
3. Profits of pharmaceutical companies must be strictly regulated like a public utility.

Which is sure to infuriate republicans and misguided capitalists everywhere. last time i was thinking about this, i came up with my own version, that's a little less extreme, and requires less gutting of the existing system:

1. Make it illegal to hire anyone for a permanent position without providing health insurance.

I think coupled with moore's third law up there, and regulation as to what's acceptable behaviour by insurance companies, we could get better health care without the dreaded 'S' word. Then again, i am a dirty hippy who's wished for socialism before.

h/t: et cetera

what is it with penguin movies bringing out every agenda under the sun, though? now i feel bad for liking their independence from the 'grow up, get married, have kids' ideal that most movies adhere to. honest, i just saw it for the cute baby penguins CG, i wasn't pushing my liberal agenda!

FF VII: Advent Children, however, is not a sequel to The Spirits Within. it's a sequel to FF VII, the squaresoft game from a decade ago. As such, the movie isn't really a movie, as much as a 2-hour episode. The story doesn't stand on it's own at all. I've played 1 demo of one of the FF games. that is not enough to put the movie into my realm of understanding.

To make matters worse, where The Spirits Within is cinematographic, and attempts to exist in 'real' world, Advent Children exists in video game space. There are 3 huge battle scenes, where characters battle at high speeds moving in one direction, without any means of propulsion for a good 15 minutes. At best, this is anime. which is fine, i like anime, but it's a waste of CG talent. the scenes are insanely slick, but it's like 2 hours of videogame cutscene.

After the movie was over, i found this:

via gravestmor. now that looks a bit more promising.

anyway, the other thing i did, was implement Lightbox JS as a gallery on my Grand Egyptian Museum Renderings page. (if there wasn't enough CG in this post for you already) Check it out. i think it's much better than the AGAL script i was using. but i'm not everyone. if there are problems, let me know. i also started adding the sitewide menu i've been meaning to for months. except that it's looking more trendy than i meant it to. then again, if i'm already using an AJAX gallery, what's the difference?

i think once upon a time i used to have a life.