John Hodgman and President Barack Obama at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner

Last week was the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner. The main speakers were President Barack Obama and comedian John Hodgman. I have provided the Obama speech above and the Hodgman speech below, both speeches are funny, but Hodgman’s Nerd vs Jock speech is great, but if you can answer all of Hodgman’s questions without problem, then all I can say is wow…

Enjoy

Dany

Woody Allen’s Whatever Works and JJ Abrams’ Star Trek IMAX

I was lucky enough last week to get into a sneak preview of Woody Allen’s latest film, a collaboration with Larry David, Whatever Works. This was a much anticipated joining of Larry David’s George Costanza/Curb Your Enthusiasm style of comedy with Woody Allen’s classic New York City storytelling.

While I enjoyed Allen’s Match Point, his more recent films centering in Europe have fallen short, but with Whatever Works, Allen returns to his native New York and in turn returns to form, delivering a wonderfully funny and quirky film that follows the latter life of a limping genious physisist (Larry David). There is a scene or two that is somewhat predictable, but there were many belly laughs for me and I wholeheartedly recommend this film to anyone looking for Allen at his best behind the camera as writer/director. The duo of David and Allen break a few film conventions here and it feels like a return to Annie Hall form, it is very well done.

Now to Star Trek, first off let me just say, I know this is a late review of the new JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, but I have spent most of 2009 in Grenada where this film was unavailable in theaters, so I haven’t had much opportunity to see this latest JJ Abrams film.

There is a lot about this film that really bugged me. I have never really been a big JJ Abrams fan and his overall filming style just seems to rub me the wrong way. I don’t know if it was the excessive and unnecessary lens flares, the wild and off kilter camera angels, maybe it was seeing the beautiful Winona Ryder play the role of Spock’s mother, it could have been all of these things, but whatever it was, something got under my skin with this film.

Now that I’ve gotten my gripes out of the way… I had a great time with this film. Even with all these things knawing at me in the back of my mind, this film is just a hell of a lot of fun time. As someone who grew up watching Star Trek reruns, the homages to the old series, like Captain Pike, his wheelchair, the fate of the classic red shirt and many many more tips of the hat were great fun. I was exteremly happy with the main character casting as well, placing Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (Bones), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu), and Anton Yelchin (Chekov, by the way, how many times can they script in V-words for this kid to say? It’s great.) in the main rolls were all great choices. It was also great to see Eric Bana completely melt away in his portrayal of Nero. I don’t know how much I liked Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, but that might just be because no one can out Shatner, William Shatner.

Another positive aspect JJ Abrams brings to his films is an extremely interesting conception of alien creatures, the scenes on the ice planet were visually stunning. So, it’s a bit late, but I would definately recommend that any sci-fi fan go out and check out this latest film, especially since there is no way that this is the final installment for this new Star Trek and even though I could do without the lens flares, I am looking forward to the next installment.

Thanks to available images and poster geek for the above pictures.

Enjoy

Dany

Pixar’s Up Review

There are very few things that will drive me to see a film when I know little to nothing about it. It’s pretty much only been when Woody Allen’s name is mentioned as the director that this is the case, but now, I would have to add a Pixar production to that short list. I have learned that anything that Pixar produces is totally worth my time.

I knew nothing about this film Up, other than its title and that it was in 3D before walking into the theater, but I left so happy that I showed up. I had heard an early review from the Filmspotting folks (subscribe here) that there was some surprisingly mature subject matter that this film dealt with, but they were good not to reveal anything about it. There are very few films that have made me cry, but I think there were at least 3 or 4 separate times that I cried during this film. I won’t reveal too much, since I went into this film cold and loved that that was the case, but I feel that because Pixar premieres a 5 minute silent short film before each of their feature films, that they have become masters at silent storytelling. The opening 40 minutes of Wall-E were some of the best silent film making I had ever seen and now with Up, the silent montage that is in the beginning of the film was just stunningly emotional. There are some real adult themes that that montage deals with, but the way that Pixar handled it, I feel that the youngest of kids won’t be as emotionally effected by it than the adults in the crowd, I really must commend Pixar, it was excellently done.

There are many positives about this movie and the relationship between the old man and the scout is just great to watch, but I felt that the conflict that included the older explorer from the main character’s past was almost entirely unnecessary to the plot. If the film had remained an adventure movie, it would have served it better. The best scenes are the main character with his wife and the main character and the scout. I have to say though, if the film had just ended when the main character had walked back into his house with his mailbox, I would have felt that that alone was probably Pixar’s best short film to date. The only other criticism I had was that I didn’t feel that the 3D experience really added much to the film and it certainly wasn’t worth the extra cost to see the movie, $16.50 was a lot to pay to see this film, the storytelling was great, it was emotionally intense, but I would recommend seeing the regular big screen version of this film.

I think people of all ages should really see this film, there are very few films that truly earn their G rating for ALL AUDIENCES, but this is definitely one of those movies.

Thanks to Twitchfilm for the above pic.

Enjoy

Dany

Access-A-Ride Bus Burns to the Ground in Manhattan on 76th and Lexington Ave Today

*Updated 11pm 2009-06-02* As I was walking to the subway this morning around 8am in Manhattan, I noticed that on 76th st and Lexington avenue an Access-A-Ride paratransit bus had caught fire and had COMPLETELY burned to a cinder. You can click here to see the google streetview of the street where this burned bus was located. I’ve now posted a bunch of pictures I took while at the scene of the actual bus all a cinder, but  I still cannot find any news stories about this fire online.

Dany

Bill to Define Marriage for Washington DC to Go to Congress

I can’t believe that it is almost halfway into 2009 and we are still arguing about defending marriage. Congress has presented a bill to define marriage as between one man and one woman in Washington, DC. This came about because the DC city council recently decided to recognize same sex marriages that couples obtained from other parts of the country where same sex marriage was legal. Congress has ultimate say over the laws in Washington, DC so to follow up their 1996 federal defense of marriage act, some conservative members want to extend this definition to The District as well.

It is hard to believe that with all the progress we have made in recent years that we are still so close minded at times. It is the same representatives who want big government out of their personal affairs behind the closed doors of their own homes that want to prevent two people from getting married because they don’t happen to be a man and a woman. The idea of a government being able to explicitly tell me who I could not marry seems like the definition of a big overreaching government to me. If our government wants to define marriage, the only definition I would support is that: Marriage should be between two consenting adults.

I used to live in Washington, DC for years and I would hate to see it regress to a city where separate but equal was still in existence, only instead of it being in regard to the school system, it referred to the rights of couples.  I know this message does not had much power, but I am including a link here so you can find the contact information for your congressional representative, so make sure you let them know how you feel about this issue, I hope you agree with me, but if you don’t, let your representative know that too. I am about to contact my member of Congress right now.

Just remember, gay rights is also a national security issue as well. Every year dozens of qualified and willing US soldiers are discharged because they reveal they are gay, even when they are Arabic translators or are willing to be redeployed to the battlefield. If Democrats were smart, they would be out front on this issue to show that they are strong on national security and anyone who is against gay rights is really hurting our national defense at the same time.

Thanks to Jeff for the link to this Washington Times article and thanks to Salon for the above pic.

Dany

*Update 22 May 2009: My NY reprepresentative in the House, Carolyn B. Maloney is against this bill and supports equal rights for all couples, so that makes me a bit happier.

President Obama Speaks at Notre Dame and Arizona State Controversy Ensues – Full Video

Not without controversy, President Obama has been keeping busy by speaking at a couple of recent commencement ceremonies. He was first scheduled to speak at Arizona State University, but then news came out that they would not be presenting him with an honorary degree, so Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show did a great piece to suss out this story. Then President Obama was scheduled at the Notre  Dame University commencement, but many Notre Dame faithful were upset that he would be speaking and that he was being presented with an honorary degree. I’m posting the full video from both the Arizona State University and Notre Dame speeches below where you can see that even some people attending the commencements made their objections heard:

Here is his full speech at Arizona Statea:

Thanks to the lovely Jessica for finding that Daily Show video!

Enjoy

Dany

F-15s in Grenada

For the past week or so, surrounding President Obama’s trip to Trinidad for the 2009 Summit of the Americas, we have had dozens of F-15 flybys in two jet tandems. They are the fastest, noisiest and most chest pumpingly awe inspiring show of US might and it has been bringing an American shaped tear to my eye every time I see one, even if they have also been flying by at 1am, 4am, 6am (waking tons of people up, but not me, since I sleep like the dead) as well as during random points throughout the day and evening. Whenever they fly by, it makes me think of Team America: World Police: “America, FUUUUCKK YEAAHHHH.”

I just wish we could see one of them just shoot something down or blow up a tree or watch them do SOMETHING explodey. God, I miss America being at school here in Grenada. While walking back from lab today, two more flew by and someone yelled out “TAKE ME WITH YOU” and that brought a huge laugh from a lot of surrounding people.

OK, that was my International news update
Dany

DARPA and the DEKA Arm from the Creator of the Segway

I found this 60 Minutes news story about the recent advances in prosthetic limbs from Dean Kamen’s (the inventor of the Segway) company DEKA. It totally floored me just how far this new upper limb technology has come.

Regardless of your politics, this is an amazing new advance coming out of the DARPA funded research.

Enjoy

Dany

Grenada at Late Sunset in April

I had to take a break to share this wonderful panorama I took of tonight’s sunset, I wish I had caught it a bit earlier while the sun was still visible in the sky, but I’ll try and get a better version soon.

Enjoy

Dany

Jim Cramer Guests on The Daily Show After Jon Stewart Bashed CNBC

After Jon Stewart slammed CNBC, Jim Cramer came on The Daily Show to try and set the record strait, but again, Jon Stewart called Cramer out on some of the more outrageous things he has done both on CNBC and while being interviewed by other non-mainstream media outlets. The interview was long and I’m posting all 3 segments of the uncensored verion. Other than all the cursing from Stewart, the whole thing felt very Tim Russert-esque with Stewart calling Cramer out with statements he had previously made that were caught on tape.

Enjoy

Dany