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XXX Review

alex — Fri, 18 Oct 2002 07:14:21 +0000

Despite having to see the movie with some of the rudest people in the audience I have ever seen^(*), I had a blast. This movie was a thrill ride, and the stunts were just spectacular.
What impressed me the most was the avalanche sequence, with ths subwoofers booming, it felt like almost being there. Sure, there may be plotholes and logical inconsistencies, but I don’t really care, because this movie is about entertainment, and it did entertain me. A lot.
The last half hour had me hanging on the edge of my seat, being totally immersed in the action on screen. The last movie to do this was Matrix, which also had me just sitting there, letting the adrenaline rush through me and enjoying the fireworks.
So, the overall rating is, see it, if you haven’t already.

And they showed the trailer for The Two Towers, which looks very promising.

^(*) Maybe it’s just me, but talking loudly during the film is just plain rude. Even more rude is popping the bottle of your softdrink so it flies through half the cinema. And why does everybody think it’s OK to just dump the popcorn onto the floor and walk all over it?
Yes, they do clean the cinema, but that does not mean you have to make a mess out of the place.
I was especially annoyed as the guy next to me got the rest of a big bucket of popcorn dumped all over him at the end of the movie. Luckily, my jacket was not in the “danger zone”.

Minority Report

alex — Wed, 09 Oct 2002 05:19:31 +0000

I went to see Minority Report with Birgit yesterday.
To avoid spoilers, I won’t post it on the front page.

Wow. That was my first thought about this movie.
First, it looked amazing. The cars, the abundance of advertisements, and, most of all, the technology. When Cruise is working on the huge screen, shuffling around images, it looks like a conjurer working his magic.
Second, the plot. I was really into it, suspending my disbelief for the 145 minutes this film was running. The world absorbed me, because it was futuristic, but still a lot like the present, so you could easily relate to it. The shock effects all worked, there were a few times that I almost jumped out of my seat, and I wasn’t the only one.
But the movie also has some very humorous scenes, for example there’s one scene where Cruise is desperately running after a pair of eyeballs he just dropped.

I think, this movie is definitely an Oscar candidate, it was very entertaining, and I would even go so far and say it was thought provoking, with the theme of fate and predetermination.

A very brief review of RedHat 8.0

alex — Sat, 05 Oct 2002 14:48:19 +0000

I installed the new RedHat version 8.0 (codename Psyche) on my laptop today. The install is the smoothest I have seen so far, really slick.
But much more important than the install is the actual product. The default X11 desktop looks really great, mostly Gnome2 with OpenOffice and Mozilla. The icons look friendly and the menus are trimmed down to only show one app for each category.
That said, I didn’t like it.
First, I don’t really like Gnome2, maybe because of the AA fonts, which to me just look washed out.
And second, it’s now a very newbie-friendly desktop, and I would install it ony mother’s PC in a flash, but to me, it’s too friendly. I like my arcane setup with loads of Xterms all over the place.
I also noticed that gnome-terminal still fucks up screen sessions, that’s why I am now using rxvt on my desktop.
I know, I can configure all that, but frankly, instead of de-n00bieing 8.0, I’ll stick with my trusted 7.3 setup.