getting around

today i decided to go exploring dunedin some more. i haven't been able to just wander and sight see for fun in a really long time people of the web wide world. man it felt good!

i also stumbled upon a neat new place that definately makes my map of dunedin!

the otago train station. here i am marvelling at the nice little garden they have out front of this amazing building... the train station is almost a hundred years old... which for new zealand is pretty old!

inside it's even more impressive. i feel like i'm on a movie set or something!

out of here runs new zealand rail whose even gone to the detail of having their logo designed into the floor of this amazing building.

poking around i found out that you can book rides on the train... holy smokes!!!

heading outside to catch the train i was disappointed to discover that the train had already departed without me...

oh well just little thing. life in dunedin overall is going awesome right now, and i'm not letting this one thing bring me down...

i'll just have to catch it later on i guess.

Tropical Malady - 2005 - DVD

Sunday, April 29, 2007

I meant to see Tropical Malady two years ago when it screened at the New York Film Festival, delays ensued, but I have finally seen it. I need to state upfront that I was slightly underwhelmed, which I'm afraid has a lot to do with the fact that everyone I spoke to said it was utterly great. Not to say they're wrong, but I was bound to be a little bit disappointed after not hearing anything negative about it. The screening was also on DVD and that must have taken something away from the picture's vividness and grace.

I have a few shots from the film that have been running in a continual loop in my mind, one is near the start when the camera tracks through the tall grass leading into the forest, practially drifting independently above the ground; another is in the second half of the story when the man stands behind a fan of palms disguised from the man-tiger that stalks him. But probably the most obvious aspect of the film that deserves consideration is the dynamic of the two lead males, both of whom give one of the gentlest portrayals of a gay relationship that I've ever seen in the movies. There doesn't seem to be a conscious fuss about their sexaul orientation. Or more precisely, there's no shame in their overt relationship and it doesn't grapple with societal restrictions put upon them. The relationship simply is, and that's rather progressive.

Friday The 13th - 1980 - OnDemand broadcast

Saturday, April 28, 2007

The original Friday The 13th begins simply with a first-person camera (that's the hockey-masked Jason) lurking through a dark cabin in the woods. We don't see him, and miraculously the cumbersome masked man-beast is stealthy enough to hide in the perfect corner out of sight from his prey. In the opening sequence that prey happens to be a young boy and girl sneaking away from the group to make out in a lofty tool shed out back. Naturally, once the girl's shirt is halfway unbuttoned Jason decides to attack—you gotta get 'em in their most vulnerable moment after all. The guy gets it in the gut, but the girl is trickier to catch: we watch her fumble with her shirt and through the obstacle course of dusty tools, until whammo!

Surprisingly, though, the first Friday The 13th doesn't reveal nearly as much skin as its successors. But that's okay. As far as I'm concerned the series had to build its graphic images gradually. We had just met Jason. As far at the 1980 audience was concerned he could have turned out to be another whacko schizophrenic a la Psycho. But he is so much more. Jason is an indestructible bloodthirsty force—why? There is no science to explain how this human figure survives, because it's the legend of his gory past that keeps him half-dead with a bloody vengeance. Starting at age 8 a friend and I would have slumber parties every weekend, which would include a dose of rented horror flicks and an armload of candy from the drug store. We watched the bloodiest, most gruesome videos our parents would allow (and if it were my parents that would mean none, hence most sleepovers took place at her place), including all current installments of Friday The 13th. We saw them all. Though I hardly remember them now, I do recall wondering how Jason managed to survive so many kicks, stabs, axes, and later on, gunshot wounds. But he did!

He's still up to his old tricks, pushing spearheads through unsuspecting campers' chest cavities, landing axe blades in the foreheads of sex-crazed college kids; though it happens so quietly, and he really takes his time before the initial strike. I'm tempted to call the first half-hour of the movie boring, but its this serenity and lack of action that makes the bludgeoning, once we get to it, that much scarier.

The OnDemand free movie section is treating me well these days, and I recommend horror fans revisit the original slasher series for a surprise in the finale shot of the climax. It'll make you jump.

Basketball Is a game of mental and physical fitness. If you want to outperform others in the game of basketball, you have to remember you use your brain just as much as you use your body. Thus, You should not just workout your body, but your brain as well. This will give you an edge on a lot of players who simply workout their bodies. Now you may ask, " how exactly am I supposed to work out

movie review: jurassic park- the lost world

55things have been going sooooo smoothly around dunedin as of late i managed to kick back the other night (at salmond hall) and watch a movie! funny enough this leads me to yet another...

dinosaur movie review!

since i'd started watching the jurassic park series with owain, i figured i'd keep on watching. bringing us to the second installment jurassic park 2... called the lost world.

now this name carries some weight with us dinosaurs. that is because to us the lost world is a legendary land where the mesozoic never ended (what i was hoping to find during my BC quest). in the lost world we surviving dinosaurs might once again find a remnant of the domain we lost all those millions of years ago... so a movie of the same title better carry some swabamoo!

Jurassic Park: The Lost World

General Summary

after the, dinosaur version of a concentration camp, theme park broke down last movie and many humans died (not to mention some dinos!) the millionaire John Hammond who built Jurassic Park has lost control of his company. The new owner decides he wants to start yet another theme park full of dinosaurs (how original of him...) and is going to go and grab some dinosaurs from "site B". this is where the dinosaurs were being hatched and brought up we're informed before being brought to jurassic park aka "Site A".

plot point: now i'm going to try to avoid commenting on the human side of movies for my reviews cause plenty of good ones already exist no doubt (what with my brain size and all), but there is a big glitch in this site B premise that is dino related. in the first jurassic park we saw them take care of and hatching dinosaur eggs! why is there suddenly a new island for that purpose?

Hammond has since the first movie become something of a dinosaur sympathizer and tries to bring public attention to the plight of the soon to be captivized dinosaurs of site B. to do so Hammond organizes an expedition to document the now thriving free prehistoric population. however to round off his team he tries to recruit mathematician Ian Malcom from the last movie (what again does math or chaos theory have to do with dinosaurs?), but the number cruncher refuses...

that is till the millionaire pulls a fast one and informs Malcom that his palaeontologist girl friend Sarah Harding is ALREADY on the island. Malcom suddenly jumps to the conclusion that the expedition is a rescue mission (what we dinosaurs aren't to be trusted just like that!?!).


heading down the island Malcom meets up with his gal pal, but discovers in addition to his planned team his daughter has come along for the trip too... why i don't know... so after experiencing some of the splendor of the island everyone, EXCEPT Malcom, is primed and psyched to explore this lost world... Malcom being the Dino hater that he is tries to get them off... kinda sit comishly actually if you ask me...

right when i worried that the stegosaurs were going to be the only dinosaurs, and the rest of the movie would be just Malcom's Dinosaurist attitudes the movie picks up.

the evil corporate hunting team shows up to enslave the dinosaurs of the island and put them into the service of tourism. after catching a bunch the bad guys look posed to succeed... the exploration team however hatches a heroic plan to free the captive dinosaurs.

meanwhile the hunting parties leader Roland Tembo discovers a tyrannosaurus nest, and decides to use the chick found within to lure the t-rex bull into a trap so he can shot it...

interrupting this scheme the good guys unleash all manner of fury on the hunters camp as they free a bunch of dinosaurs who completely trash the place. on their way out the good guys stumble on the now wounded t-rex chick who is calling for it's parents. not wanting it to be a cripple the good guys bring it back to doctor it.

however mommy and daddy t-rex show up, and in the process of getting their baby back destroy the good guys camp as well.

leaving both teams stranded on the island. they all decide to work together to get to the old compound on the island to call for help.

along the way the t-rexs show back up and eat a bunch of people, and then the majority that the the rexs miss are polished off by raptors. in the midst of this carnivore confusion Roland manages to tranquilize the daddy t-rex, and the baby is caught... the bad guys make fully ready to ship the two of them back to the mainland for display...

however something goes terribly wrong on the ship carrying daddy, and it crashes into shore unleashing daddy on san francisco. the CEO of bad company orders the tyrannosaur destroyed...

Malcom suddenly has a change of heart on his dinosaur hating ways, and with Hardings help they rescue both the baby, and using it, lure it's daddy to safety where they are both sent back home, and the end scene of the movie is a happily ever after in the lost world...

Dinosaur Stars and Celebreties

so that's Steven Speilberg's sequel to jurassic park in a nutshell. with the success of the first film in 93 and the publics new interest in us dinosaurs Speilberg would go way out of his way to unleash even more dinosaurs in the second movie.

now many of them were returnees from the first film, but this time around many of the herbivores were given more screen this time around. as for the new comers some were big shocks to us dinosaurs watching the casting from the outside!

the new dinosaurs on the movie scene

• Compsognathus the smallest dinosaur of all time make their debut in the lost world. their inclusion in the movie though a good addition was slightly conterversial. in micheal critons books that the jurassic park movies are based on stated that there should be procompsognathues rather then compsognathuses. a little known fact about the little compsognathus is that they are part of the coelosaur family. the same family that not only us tyrannosaurs are in, but also the dromaesaurs (or sorry raptors... got remember some none palaeo ppl on the innerweb). meaning that compies are direct relatives of BOTH the major starring dinosaurs of this movie. rumour has it that lobbying from among either my cousin larry or the raptors this species change was made for the movie...
  
  
  
• Mamenchisaurus yet another upset when it came around to the lost world. the role of biggest dinosaur (invetiably played by a sauropod) had been played by a brachiosaurus in the first movie. however due to the critical acclaim and consideration for an oscar the brachiosaur asked for too high a price to reappear in the sequel. with such a small part in this film the humans opted to let the brachiosaur go, and instead cast a new long neck. rather then the obvious choice of an Apatosaurus or Diplodocus (of whom many have been in movies) Speilberg instead opted for their little known (by the public anyway) chinese relative. though two appear only in one scene it brought the longest necked animal of all time to the attention of the human world. this was also seen as an appeasement for the casting of american raptors in the place of authentic chinese ones.

• Pachycephalosaurus sadly no scandal or politics played a part in the casting of this bonehead (i'm not calling him a name... it's the truth these guys have the thickest skulls of any dinosaur!). just rather they'd been overlooked by hollywood for far too long. rather then a grand entranced they literally rammed their way onto the big screen!
  

returning to the big screen

• Gallimimus returning for brief cameos were the chinese speedsters.
  
  
• Parasaurolophus the odd hadrosaur from alberta, who had only a brief one scene appearance in the first movie, get a much more impressive treatment in the lost world. they appear in several key shots of the dinosaur hunt (my favourite scene of the movie). good to see some dinosaur provincal park era dinosaurs finally getting acknowledged in the movies (well other then Styracosaurus).
  
  
• Pteranodon who is not techincally a dinosaur (but rather a prehistoric animal who i said i'd cover in my reviews) has appeared in dozens of movies throughout the years, but this would be their first appearance in a film in the modern era. if only for a brief cameo at the very end of the movie as the LAST thing we see...
  
  
• Stegosaurus another species with numerious appearances in movies in the olden days of dinosaur movies, but again no modern appearance. due to a survey of humans as to which dinosaur they most wanted to see in a new jurassic park stegosaurus was given a very prominent and key role in the film as being the second dinosaur shown on screen, and in the "awe" and "wonder" role that the brachiosaurus had been given in the first. the steggy herd scene is a standout one in this movie for us dinosaur.
  


• Triceratops returns in the sequel if sadly only for a brief cameo. here you get to see my favourite food in its none sick pathetic state rampaging through the bad guy camp. you'll get an appreciatation of why we t-rexs are so big and scary... we have to be able to kill these guys!
  
  
• Tyrannosaurus Rex the king of the dinosaurs returns once again to be king of the box office. my cousin larry returns to his role as the main dinosaur of the film. this time however he gets to play a male, and his wife would be cast to play this mate...
  
  
• Velociraptor with their trimphant breakout role in the first movie the raptors are back (again played by bulkier and less gracile american Deinonychus) to resume their role as the "intellegent" killing machines (but as you'll see in my review i'm sick of that correlation)
  

easily the most recognizable and famous of the dinosaur stars is again my cousin larry. here in this famous production photo larry recieves direction from the legendary stan winston. larry had cemented himself a reputation and career as a solid easy to work with dinosaur actor. in the quest for fame and fortune larry was more then willing to put aside his destain for humans (seriously in REAL life he hates humans!) to make movies.

however when it became apparent in the writing stage that a second t-rex was going to be needed to play larry's mate speilberg thought it was going to be an interesting casting call due to t-rex solidarity. this was of course not true. humans at some point thought we t-rexs didn't really get along in big groups, but in reality we're all about team work. how else you going to take down a triceratops from a herd if not in a pack?

this resulted in the casting of the biggest and meanest female t-rex they could find (not that it was hard for them to do... girl t-rexs are the bigger meaner members of our species). thus entered teresa the tyrannosaur. much to the humans surprise her and larry got along great so shooting commenced immediately in fears they might not later on...

they got along so great that larry and teresa extended their roles as mates to real life after the movie... i personally don't get it... how a super babe like that ends up such a jerk!

also back were the three Deinonychus from the first film. they were extremely excited to get back into the public lime light, and it would be this second appearance that guranteed them equal popularity to us tyrannosaurs (a move that caused the only tension between larry and Speilberg).

when the script suddenly called for a baby t-rex i recieved my last offer from hollywood! because i'm the smallest tyrannosaur you'd ever seen it seemed the perfect part for me, and as i spoke perfect english and had extensive experience working along side humans i shoulda been a shoein. however when one of terseas nephews auditioned speilberg feel in love with the idea of an authentic "wild" t-rex baby... what does the mean "wild" we're all living in a cenizoic world here! no such thing as the lost world except in this movie!

needless to say i still hold a slight grudge about this too! but as this is a review and not an angry rant i return to the lost world...

Dinosaur Portayal

the ever famous stegosaurus herd scene from the lost world sums up how this movie nailed dinosaurs in a movie as never before... we were treated like REAL animals, and not just hollywood horror monsters!

even the stegosaurs attack sequence isn't just a typical hollywood random killer dinosaur moment. thinking that their baby is in danger due to the efforts of dr. harding the stegosaur family unit jumps into action to ward off the threat. Though giving the audience what it wants in the form of dinosaur caused danger it gets there through the means of making the dinosaurs motivation both believable and sympathizable.

this same treatment extended to all the dinosaurs (save the raptors, but i'll talk about them shortly). the tyrannosaurs rampaging exploits in this film centre around a families struggle to endure the meddling of humans on their lives.

yes there is plenty of killing and property destruction along the way, but in the end it is all sympathizable and logical. the audience can follow what's going through larry and teresa's characters heads (even if based on slightly incorrect theories by the film makers. in reality we t-rexs were more then immediate family packs. for the movie to have been correct there should have been some 20 tyrannosaurs of various ages and sizes roaming together... but the humans wouldn't have stood a chance!).

so overall the movie was amazing in dinosaur portrayal.

it does have on tyrannosaur quirk that carried over from the first movie that i didn't want to harp on when reviewing the first jurassic park (cause that first movie was such a landbreaking effort), but if i hear the saying "it can't see you if you don't move" i'm going to eat someone myself!

i don't know why larry let that one slip into the script, that alone pop up again in the sequel? we t-rexs are as stereoscopic in eyesight as our small relatives the raptors! you just stand there you make a perfect snack... if a t-rex is ever eying you down get out of there pronto... don't walk RUN!

the only other tyrannosaur bit that had me a little miffed was more due to larry's ego. in the end sequence in which the t-rex rampages through san francisco is larry blatantly trying to one up legendary movie dinosaur godzilla (my personal hero).

don't get me wrong. the san fransico rampage is still a highlight of the lost world. it serves as a brilliant contrast of the human world with an ideal dinosaur world. it encompasses and touchingly acknowledges all modern surviving dinosaurs feeling of being trapped in circumstances we can't control... well and the fantasy of exerting our full saurian might in trashing said oppressive world...

the whole situation in film is done sympathetically of daddy heroically trying to track down his kidnapped child...

it's just larry's performance now that then that bugs me. looking all smug and JERK! like. he may do our species credit on the big screen, but larry is still NO godzilla (whose movies i intend to get around to soon).

the only true disappointment is the velociraptors in the film. here again they are nothing more then "minded" killing machines...

i won't even care had they been treated like the ordinary middle of the food chain predators they are in reality, but this insistence on playing them up as the most intelligent dinosaurs yish...

so are the film makers trying to say the smarter you are the more violent you are?

never once is any real life motivation for the raptors given for their killing spree other then "stay out of the long grass"

Dinosaur Perception

despite their silly and overly violent (even for the real life brutes they are) portrayal of the raptors this movie finished off the job of propelling the dromaesaurs into fullout stardom. they now forever onward would rival us tyrannosaurs in popularity and notoriety.

the lost world continued the overall trend of jurassic park of making us cool again.

it also again presented us for the first time convincingly as real animals that once (and still do in some cases) lived.

Dinosaur Human Relations

This was an interesting movie for the issue of dinosaur human relations.

the typical theropod killing humans thus dinos=bad, stereotype persisted a little through the raptor parts of the movies. however elsewhere anytime a dinosaur was harming a human it was due mostly to human related activities.

this movie accurately despicted real life dinosaur life in a human world. actively being captured, collected, and corralled against our will by humans. it brought attention to the plight of modern dinosaurs not lucky enough to have made it in hollywood and thus have been sequestered to theme parks and musuems.

for a short time it looked as though dinosaur rights might make it into the public arena...

alas it was not too happen.

however due to it's nearly raising this issue, and other reasons i'm lead to my

Favourite Scene of the Movie

the dinosaur hunting scene is ironically my favourite scene. not because of it's coolness or fun (that'd go to parts of larry's rampage in san fransico... he may be no godzilla, but i'm a sucker for dino related property damage...), but rather it's all out honest on how humans tend to treat us modern dinosaurs. as nothing more then property and money making objects...

it also had a beautiful side benefit of showing how we actually existed millions of years ago, that had never truely been shown in a movie before. it depicted a multitude of herbvorious dinosaurs cominglating in a natural and dyamic ecosystem. in years past these guys would only have appeared one at a time either to fight or try and kill a human.

in the first jurassic park this reality of multiple dinosaurs coexisting in a natural setting had only been hinted at in the long shot with the brachiosaurs and parasaurolophus.

finally in the lost world this reality would be portrayed in its full glory (though with the dark reality of human interference over this ideal). from here on in dinosaur movies would pick up on this, and contuine to show this (a trend i'll look at in future reviews).

Final Score

so how does all this add up.

despite the amazingly outdated stereotypical meat eating dinosaurs are mindless (or sorry "minded) killing machines take on the raptors.

the ridiculous t-rexs STILL can't see none moving things plot device

the lost world is otherwise free of flaws.

it for the first time portrayed dinosaurs both plant eating AND meat eating as real animals with motivations and needs

it brought to light many human ills brought on dinosaurs as opposed to the other way round.

most importantly as i discussed at the very beginning this movie truely portrayed a DINOSAUR view of the lost world. not just the human version where dinosaur exist solely to be discovered, captured, killed, or kill...

it was shown as close to a prehistoric paradise as had ever been up till that time...

as of such i give it:

overall score: 100% !!!

living on the edge

life in dunedin carries on, and so far its good.

now i'm hesitatiant to claim its good. everytime i've said "things are looking better" or "on the up" (since my being laid off by the tyrrell anyways) they've always gone horribly horribly wrong...

i thought today was going to be the start of the downfall of my being in dunedin... force of habit i guess... but it had the setup to be a disaster...

my landlord ben the gardener wanted to meet with me this afternoon to discuss my living in the botanic gardens. when he told me i could move in originally we didn't really have time to go over... well... anything to do with my being a resident in his domain. that and i kinda lied to him and got him to sign a testamonial as to my character...

i was a little worried that ben was going to change his mind and boot me out of the garden...

it was a lovely afternoon when we met in the garden. i noticed ben seemed fairly cheerful, but then again i know people can be friendly and then do something really mean. i tried my best to be nice so that maybe he'd change his mind.


he suggested that we head up and take a seat on bench hill to have our little talk... oh man i thought sitting down. that means this was either going to be long or something "heavy" (hence the need for a sit down)... in either case that meant it was more likely to bad then good...

as we headed up to bench hill ben would stop to check out some of the plants. i wondered why? he informed me that's what being a gardener is all about. keep a close watch on plants and the other things in your garden and make sure that their doing fine.

hmmm big job a gardeners then...

when we got up to bench hill we took a seat, and i braced for the worst...

ben started off by saying "so how are you enjoying living in the gardens so far?"

okay not quite the start to this i was expecting, but i figured it'd get bad sooner then later. "it's pretty cool," i hesitately replied.

"good," ben went on. "i just wanted to check in to make sure you're first month has gone smoothly. i haven't had a lot of time to catch up with you since you moved in."

"no everything is fine," i sorta lied. not to say that wasn't the truth people of the world wide web, but talking to ben wasn't exactly fun. i didn't want to have to find another home already...

"splendid," ben said as he stood up. "i was worried you were going to need something or want to move out." he laughed "i know these gardens can be a tad bit crowded at times. i frankly thought you might want to leave and find a less busy place to live."

wait what? i thought. this wasn't what i thought it was at all... oh man...

things haven't been going my way for so long people of the innerweb (since i started this blog basically) that i've become used to them going wrong. i really need to watch that i don't fall into negative thinking...

"i've been feeling a little bad not having caught up with you since you moved in. i kinda like the idea of my garden having a dinosaur living in it," ben chuckled. "i was worried you'd already left. i haven't seen you around at all. where did you end up settling in the garden?"

"the dell," i answered.

"really!" bens face suddenly became serious. oh great right when i started to try and think positive he gets all mad...

"well that explains why you haven't noticed the crowds," he seemed to note out loud. "look traumador that is a very nice area, and i don't mind you living there, but i need to warn you."

ben looked a little troubled. "whatever you do don't venture beyond the dell. otherwise you'll be entering the maze," he tensened. "i don't normally like to talk about as it might encourage people to see it, but i figure i need to warn you about it."

"oh i know about the maze," i interupted. i'd heard about it in my initial explorations of dunedin. "supposedly nobodies ever found the end of it, and some have never come back."

ben looked on kinda impressed.

"i know it's just a story, and that it isn't real," i told him confidently. "you're secret is safe with me."

suddenly ben leaned in closer and lowered his voice "you misunderstand me my little friend," his voice had a urgency about it. "the maze is no mere myth. many who have set out to find its secrets have never returned. i myself have never wandered into its enigma."

okay i knew he had to be pulling my leg now. "yeah okay you fooled me," i jested back. ben didn't flinch or move. "you're the head gardener, you'd have to know every little spec of this place by heart by now."

he just looked at me his eyes never moving. "you don't understand traumador," his voice was like out of a scary movie. "this is no ordinary maze or trail. once you enter the dell that forest ceases to be of this world. it is that of some other."

okay i was starting to get a little freaked out...

"me and my crew never cut through that section of the woods. if you do you never come back," he came in closer to me. "whatever you do, if you find yourself in the maze for some reason don't ever step off the path. or you won't come back either..."

now i was totally freaked out. i promised to not go into the maze which caused ben to calm back down into his nice cheerful self. he said he didn't mean to panic me, and took me down to the cafe by the duck pond for a coffee to ease my mind... it was a nice ending to that somewhat stressful conversation...

had i made a bad desicion? i wondered. wanting to stay in the gardens now? i came worried i was going to be kicked out, but now i was worried about staying...

i'll just have to make sure i don't go into the maze...

Chinatown - 1974 - VHS

Monday, April 23, 2007

Remember all the times you had to watch this in Screenwriting 101? Chinatown in conjunction with Robert McKee's guidebook "Story," is practically the gospel of college film course curriculum, so I had every reason to ignore it by graduation. Well, once again filtering through the old VHS collection I decided it was time to watch it again. I honestly thought I would have missed something after all these years, but the story, the characters, hell, even the dialogue is clear as crystal. Though, consistently seeing it through the perspective of a nit-picky narrative-driven screenwriting teacher, I never took much notice of the movie's technical aspects. This time I noticed the actual movement of the camera, the stylized opening credits, and the de-saturation of the film's color--making it all the more dark, all the more noir.

Anecdotally, it turns out I watched this just a day after Jack Nicholson's 70th birthday. (He's 70!)

"interesting" work

work overall has been going pretty good. in fact people of the innerweb, i lie. work has been going amazing!

i have way more responsibility then i typically did at the tyrrell (well other then when i worked with the kids of badlands science camp). guarding the whole otago museum is a pretty big deal! i've been treating it like such too...

so much so that i haven't been wandering around the place while on shift. from the balconies in the main lobby i can see the entrances to ALL the galleries. meaning that if i stay in the lobby watching all the floors and entrances to their galleries nothing can get in OR out without me knowing...

this strategy has left the majority of the building a mystery to me though... which i have to admit is a little weird... i knew the inside of the royal tyrrell inside and out by heart well before i started working there (but then again i did also growup with two guys who worked there...)

my supervisor was a tad bit concerned when she learned of my unfamiliarity with the building... oh right people of the world wide web i haven't introduced you to my boss have i!... how rude of me... this is her here... ms. rhonwyn. she's in charge of specimen and display management, which includes us security guards.

as i was saying last night she was a tad bit concerned when she learning of my unfamiliarity with the building.

"traumador you can't keep an eye on things you haven't seen before," she stated.

oh man! i didn't want to get into trouble at work already!

i tried to explain the logic behind why i didn't leave the lobby...

ms. rhonwyn well she just laughed at me... oh boy. that wasn't good. i just knew it. everytime humans laugh at me they do mean things or bad stuff happens... i didn't want to get fired!!!

"i can see that being one good way of keeping guard," she chuckled. "but traumador the museum typically isn't under siege every night." she paused. "granted it can have 'interesting' bouts now and then."

what did she mean by " 'interesting' ", and why did she raise her hands to her head like that, and make the the quoting sign?

"i want you to try something a little different here tonight traum," she went on. "instead of standing in the lobby the whole night, i want you to take some time, whether it be all together or separate, and explore at least one gallery a night. till you have a feel for the layout of the place."

that didn't sound too hard i figured. take in one bit of the museum, AND still do a good job. i was really starting to like my job!

as ms. rhonwyn started to head out to go home, she stopped abruptly. "oh but do be careful when you take that time to explore that you write down which part of the museum you're in," she instructed "just in case something, odd, were to happen to you, so we know where to look for you."

what?

well for the first 3 hours after ms. rhonwyn, and the other museum staff left i stood guard vigilantly in the lobby like always. however i have to admit i was starting to get bored of standing there with nothing happening...

so i grabbed one of the maps of the museum and decided i'd check out the nature gallery first. cause nature is cool!

writing a quick note of where i was going to be... not sure what could happen to me though?... but i won't argue with the boss... i think they know best... don't they?

so i headed up to the third floor to check out the nature gallery...

now i'd been in the entrance to this gallery before, but what i was going to find going all the way in was going to blow me away...

right after the sperm whale jaw was a fossil. not just any fossil mind you. it was a shark-toothed dolphin skull, just like the one i'd seen at the geo museum at hogwarts tower at the university...

was it weird that i was creeped out by this?... i mean not only was it the first fossil i ran into at that museum too... but it from my somewhat extensive experience working around fossils looked like the exact same skull... now it could have been a cast (that is an exact copy of the fossil... not the cast you put on a broken bone), but i was a little suspicious considering the magical nature of the geo museum...

putting that suspicion on hold... for now... as i was in the otago museum i figured i should keep exploring. especially since ms. rhonwyn was expecting me to do so...

i had no idea that the otago museum was home to so many fossils!

they had a whole mini gallery in the nature hall full of nothing but an extinct bird species known as a moa...

they had almost as many moas as the tyrrell has dinosaurs!!!

now as i didn't want to leave the lobby unguarded too long i decided i could check out this moa corner more in depth another time...

thus far the fossils had all been from eras well after the time of the dinosaurs, and much closer to that of the present (and into mammals rule of earth...). though i knew that the south island of new zealand didn't have any dinosaurs of it's own due to my research at the university of calgary with my friend micheal i hadn't really paid attention to the details in those readings.

you see i thought that meant there were no left over bits of critters from my own era...

man was i wrong! they had a whole section of marine reptiles... marine reptiles didn't really occur any other time then that of the dinosaurs (well other then sea turtles... which managed to survive the extinction 65 million years ago... lucky ducks!)...

now don't get me wrong. i actually love marine reptiles. i think their really cool. we have a bunch of them back in canada too... i just hadn't expected to run into any here in dunedin. that alone here at my new job...

this here is the crown jewel of the fossil gallery. a next complete plesiosaur... which also happens to be the LARGEST fossil thus far discovered within new zealand. north or south island. here we were sharing the same museum...

with a key difference. she is a display specimen that the public comes to see. me i'm just a lowly security guard (hopefully for just right now...). i didn't want to see her response to finding out that a dinosaur had moved in on her saurian free mesozoic gallery...

fortunately she was asleep when i came across her. so that will be a meeting that can wait for another day. phew...

this gallery wasn't done with the surprises though... turning around i nearly screamed at the sight of a whole HERD of dinosaurs running behind me! fortunately for all concerned (especially those hypsilophodonts) they weren't real dinosaurs... rather just a painting of some...

man oh man... i'm not sure my brain the size of a peanut could have stood finding out that all that hard work i put in with micheal at the UoC library was wrong about there being no dinosaurs on the south island!

the display was talking about the dinosaurs found up on the north island. i might have to go pay a visit sometime. it can wait though. after all my run ins with dinos since my being laid off from the tyrrell i wasn't ready to risk the typical rude reception i'd been getting from them lately.

finishing off this tour of discovery i found yet another tyrrell like shocker... this time a reminder of the cause of my problems (and all surviving dinosaurs really). the mass extinction display...

now we had one of these at the tyrrell too, and it was a spot of some contention between us dinosaurs who worked there and human management. to humans this is just a factual event that warrants some curiosity and wonder. to us dinosaurs this is, well, kinda the BIGGEST event ever.

not only did it significantly change our culture and history forever, the extinction did kind of destroy the majority of our population (well okay of those species who hadn't gone extinct prior to the extinction... when you're around for 125 million years you can't help but expect evolution and selective pressures to take their toll a bit... but those species whose day in the sun it was had the sun set a bit early as a result in any case!)...

with that in mind you can kind of understand why we dinosaurs don't really like huge displays on the subject.

here was one starring me right in the face. even more so was a picture a tyrannosaur standing in the foreground (with some sauropods oddly enough... we t-rexs never did live anywhere near or when a sauropod did...). yet another reminder that me and my species had our reign as king of the dinosaurs so prematurely ended, and that if not for the heroic sacrifice of my mother during the extinction (the sacrifice that caused her fossilization i'll point out!) i too would have met a premature ending...

this was a little more then i wished to see, and i decided i'd call an end to my exploration for now. i made a note in my mind that i'd have to avoid this section of the nature gallery from now on (just like we dinos avoided the tyrrell's extinction display back in drumheller).

resuming watch i can say that beyond that shocking ending to my exploration the night went smoothly.

now i can see what ms. rhonwyn means by "interesting"

The Age of Innocence - 1993 - OnDemand broadcast

Friday, April 20, 2007

This is my second viewing of Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, which has confirmed it's spot as one of the director's best. The Age of Innocence is more about the passage of time, history, and pushing boundaries of social custom, and finally, love--a big change from the bloodletting gangster pieces usually associated with Scorsese. In brief, I adored the delicate gaze across walls filled with paintings, and corridors of the upper class adorned with fine art of all sorts, very much including the characters dressed in intricate laces and fabrics that provide enough contrast as to be pieces of art themselves. A shot of a single empty room is superimposed over the same space filled with people; gradually characters fade into existence, and then once again fade away. Gracefully, we register the passage of time and gain a sense of history--the permanence of a room, an inanimate space, with the comings and goings of life and life passed, and it happens before our eyes in a matter of seconds.

Casual Sex? - 1988 - OnDemand broadcast

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Where has this movie been all my life? This is comedy of the Anchorman/40-Year-Old Virgin/Dodgeball caliber, only from the female perspective, and stars one of the funniest females in SNL's history, Victoria Jackson. She plays her usual naive and slightly ditzy blonde, and who is desperately afraid of sex--particularly in contrast with her fast friend, played by Lea Thompson.

It took me off guard one tired evening after work. As I paged through the OnDemand free movie list I saw the name. I remembered it from when I was a kid. Of course, at eight-years-old I was a far cry from witnessing an R-rated movie, but it filled me with intrigue! Last year I saw another movie from my childhood that was strictly forbidden, Michael J. Fox in Bright Lights, Big City, and though it didn't turn out to be particularly great, it was a thrill to finally see this thing that at one point I never could. So that's the setup for Casual Sex?, the title of which was alone enough for mom and dad to impose a viewing ban.

And for good reason: the story follows two sexually frustrated women in the midst of an AIDS-scared, women's-lib dating world. Again and again they talk about safe sex, using a condom--which they had never done before (!), and even follows Stacy (Lea Thompson) into an AIDS clinic for test results. Stacy is a serial mother figure for her boyfriends, always enabling their life goals over her own, and using sex as a means for intimacy. While Melissa (Victoria Jackson) is practically frightened to death of men, finally settling for (then breaking up with) a finance who bloats himself on the couch while watching sports all afternoon. Neither are in fulfilling relationships, so to cure their sexual/emotional impasse with men they jaunt to a health resort for an extended holiday, a singles holiday.

Gorgeous 80s athletic wear (think fluorescent high-cut bikinis), teased hair, and a lot of hunky muscle-bound men parade about the resort grounds. The ladies, forced to drink bitter mineral water, exercise rigorously, and carry on mind dulling conversations with a greasy street jock named Vinny (Andrew Dice Clay), make for a smirky peek at the female psyche. Based on a stage play of the same title, this self-aware story opens asking for direct audience engagement with their first-person camera address. Mostly the women ask you to take them with a grain of salt, but to take them nonetheless as they mockingly meander through their personal anxieties and sexual absurdities.

Diggers - 2007 - Film

Monday, April 16, 2007 (released last Friday, April 27)

Diggers is a small, intimate movie that captures a snap-shot of life in South Shore, Long Island in 1976. There's a golden, harvest hue to the interiors, and faded plaids and feathered hairstyles donned by the characters that give the film a subtle seventies look. There's no glitz and mirrored disco balls, in fact, I don't think there's even a disco hit on the soundtrack. In other words, the decoration is authentically the 1970s, but without manufactured plasticity or nostalgia...

Read the whole review on Scarlett Cinema!

Strangers With Candy - 2005 - DVD

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Never having seen the Comedy Central series "Strangers With Candy," but now an avid follower of Amy Sedaris's black and effervescent humor first glimpsed through the best hospitality book on the market, "I Like You," I have to say, I like you, too, Ms. Sedaris. So much. Because you (Amy) are unapologetically and delightfully obnoxious. And you make fun of ex-con lesbian crack whores who go back to high school when they're 40. That's very bold, don't you think?

I like her eager, adolescent silliness mixed with the grim realities of adult life. I like that Ms. Sedaris was a Girl Scout as a young'un and has taken the time to transform our view of that krafty, cookie-selling blonde as a strung-out sex addled spinster. And I like that Ms. Sedaris' character, Jerri Blank, has the sensibility of a pubescent kid in the body of woman on the verge of menopause (and rehab). Think of Strangers With Candy as a Lifetime made-for-TV movie on a bad acid trip. Take joy in little set details, like a sign on the lunchroom wall that reads "We Reserve The Right to Refuse Service to Anyone." Find peace in the opening monologue that begs the question, "Can we change?" while Jerri is being chauffeured off prison grounds in a bus with bars on the window.

Especially, give thanks that so many stars have joined hands in Strangers' comedy of dysfunction, including Stephen Colbert's emotionally wrought role as the closeted-gay school science teacher, Mr. Chuck Noblet, who has fallen in love with Paul Dinello's flamboyant art teacher Geoffrey Jellineck. Be glad that a character's last name is "Jellineck!" Sarah Jessica Parker takes her sexual wit from Carrie Bradshaw and funnels it and a dose of cruelty into her role as the school grief counselor, Peggy Callas, while hubby Matthew Broderick returns to the halls of high school-- after ditching them in Ferris Bueller's, and after his tattered homecoming in Election--for a third time, as an outsourced science fair project manager.

A description of plot details alone is hilarious. But put to action by Amy Sedaris's unself-conscious manner and it's practically an existential experience.

movie review: jurassic park

in my ongoing effort to improve my blog (as per my agent's advice) i've come up with a fun way i can do that, and also explore my dinosaur cultural heritage at the same time!

the other day i watched jurassic park with owain, and he had a bunch of questions that got me thinking...

there are a ton of movies out there that focus on us dinosaurs, but yet no one speaks on our behalf as to what these movies mean to us. then it occurred to me while i was explaining some of that stuff to owain. why don't i put the record straight about what these movies say and mean to us dinosaurs!

aside from tourism (mostly in museum and theme parks), movies are the largest employer of us none extinct dinosaurs so it'll be interesting to really sit back and see what they have us up to. especially since let's face it i don't want to be a security guard my whole life!

so the criteria i'm going to look at in these dinosaur (and come to think of it why not all us poor million year old and above exiles dinos and none dinos alike!) movies are:

• the dinosaur (or prehistoric critter) stars and/or celebrities in the film
  
  

• The portrayal of dinosaurs in the film
  

• impact on dinosaur perception
  

• how dinosaur/human relations are depicted

• the best scene of the movie (from a dinosaurs point of view)
  
• so without further adue the first movie i'll look at is:
  

Jurassic Park

directed by the ever talented steven speilberg this movie brought us dinosaurs into a whole new spotlight and perseption... it is perhaps the greatest dinosaur movie ever made (from both a dinosaur and human point of view!)... let us look at what made this the classic that it is today...

Summary

the story is that through the science of genetics humans are able to bring dinosaurs back to life through clowning... or i mean cloning... a scientific version of copy and pasting if i got the point from the movie right...

having brought many of dinosaurs back to life the humans in the movie build a theme park centered around the reserecuted saurians (wow a theme park focused on dinosaurs, what an original idea hollywood! if i had a dime for every dino i've met who lived in one of those!) that will make millions of tourist dollars.

after a dromaesaurid (sorry raptor for you none palaeo types out there) causes some trouble the humans get worried about the parks safety, and call in a bunch of experts to make sure the park is safe. among these are a two palaeontologists (who are the coolest humans in the film if you ask me! they are well portrayed to. equally cool as real palaeontologists like dr. brinkman!) and a mathmatician (??? what do dinosaurs and math have to do with each other?)

however an evil human mucks around with the parks safety systems in the middle of the inspection tour and all kinds of chaos and people eating ensues...

Stars and Celebrities

this movie assembled an impressive cast of dinosaurs. not since the days of harryhausen had such a large variety of dinosaurs been in a single picture. many of them first timers to the big screen, and thus exposing them and their species to a whole new level of human awareness and popularity...

• parasaurolophus. among the most unusual of the duckbills (aka steaks). these guys were sadly just extras in this movie, but it was nice to see some alberta representation in the film (paras are from my neck of the woods)
  

• brachiosaurus. the biggest dinosaur of all time, and yet this was their first appearance in a motion picture... humans are weird sometimes in casting
  

• triceratops. my favorite food makes it into the film, and in a helpless and sick form that would make it real easy to eat! speilbergs the man!
  

• gallimimus. the asian speedster closely related to north american (many of whom are from alberta!) ornithomimids. though ostrich mimic dinosaurs had been in a lot of movies before this, this was a nice touch of internationalism. especially considering the big asian role of the velociraptors were played by americans (go figure!)
  

• dilophosaurus. the most decorative of theropods. just too bad that they made the dilophosaur (who was a child actor by the way! they get a lot bigger then in the movie!) put on that stupid clown collar and look like a fool cause this was their first time in a movie too...
  

• velociraptor. the single most influnetial dinosaur casting call of all time! "raptors" were a no name before this movie, but have now managed to rival us t-rexs in popularity... the real kicker is that in real life velociraptor is half the size of those in the movie with a slender long snout and more gracile features overall (gracile is a sciency word for slender and light). however hollywood thought that this lean mean asian look was too "soft" for their film so they instead cast a pack of american deinonychus to play the role instead! this racism and american centric attitude shocks me, and i take it out on the movies overall score...
  

• tyrannosaurus rex. of course no dinosaur movie would be complete without the king of the dinosaurs, but us t-rexs. by this time hollywood had finally stopped casting allosaurs in the part of t-rexs (mostly due to their being on a lower pay scale... hey we t-rexs are king. that's something you have to pay for!!!) meaning that in this definative film we t-rexs were guranteed an accurate portrayl (there's nothing worse then watching a movie that has an allosaur playing one of us... it'd be like a gorilla playing a human in a movie to you people of the innerweb... allosaur accents alone sound so silly, but i won't rant about them in this review anymore cause their not there!)
  

now this film has a very special signficance to me that i don't like to talk about much. more because it represents my first taste of tradegy and defeat...

way back when they were casting for the part of the t-rex i kinda auditioned for the part... which with all the computer magics they were using on the film meant they coulda made me look bigger (just like how they made the hobbits smaller in lord of the rings), and thus i would have been famous, and then my life would have turned out better then it has.

however as it unfolded exactly one other t-rex applied for the job. that was my cousin larry!

in the end larry got the part... big surprise!

not my fault i'm only three feet tall where larry if 40 feet long! so what if i speak english where he has one of the best tyrannosaurus voices in the world (he does have one of the best roars i've ever heard).

i'll try to not let my... uh... dislike... for my cousin effect the rest of my review because despite our personal differences i can't say it's because of his acting. in all honesty larry is a way better actor then i am, and he does us tyrannosaurs justice on screen. just off screen he is a big JERK! but enough about my families troubles, and back to the review...

considering the impressive resume that larry has, and this being his first, it is among his best movie roles. i'm also told that while filming, like above, he is a very professional dinosaur and poses little threat to the cast or crew of movies he works on... (unlike raptors... surprising how many of their scenes in jurassic park are just out takes edited into the movie due to their authenticness. all i have to say is samuel l. jackson is a good sport about the whole incident with his arm).

now there are some humans who'd point to this first role with some mockery due to larry playing a female t-rex. however what they fail to realize is that in tyrannosaur culture females are the big strong individuals, and the for a male to portray one he must be a pretty darn scary male... the fact that larry hasn't ever been critized by anyone for being a poor excuse for a cow t-rex should probably speak for itself.

Dinosaur Portrayal

the portrayl of us dinosaurs in jurassic park was revolutionary! never before had dinosaurs been shown as anything but crazy killer monsters. not in a million years (or if your being techincal about it 65 million) would a dinosaur have been shown to be sick or lie down like this burger... or i mean triceratops above... man i'm getting hungry writing this review!

in the olden days of dinosaur movies even gentle and ninny plant eaters would have tried to kill or destroy any human they saw. not in jurassic park... instead herbivores were just that. salad eaters who possed little threat to any (now if only i could just get to isle nublar for a snack!)

however us meat eaters don't get much improved depictions in this movie (though by the sequel they do get better!). all the theropods in this movie kill at least one human, and in larry's case other dinosaurs! this is an example of hollywood playing into commonly held sterotypes about theropods and not setting the record straight...

Impact on Dinosaur Perception

perhaps why jurassic park is such a big deal for us dinosaurs is that it made us cool again!

we hadn't been a big deal since the beginning of the 20th century. as of the world wars (though i still don't know which other world humans were fighting...) we dinosaurs were a forgotten wonder of earth's prehistoric past. as of jurassic park though we were back!

even more important jurassic park presented what we dinosaurs were for the first time!

like so many other minorities hollywood had for years been portraying us in inaccuarate and to be frank insulting ways. big dumb lizards. tail draggers (man my back hurts anytime i watch oldie dino movies and the poor dino actors are forced to drag their tails like they are!).

that all changed with jurassic park. we were shown as the energic, warm blooded, tail lifters we are.

it also had one other interesting impact on dino image which to be honest i don't think was so great, but i have to mention it on behalf of all dinosaurs.

that was the elevation of a new type of dinosaur to tyrannosaurus rex popularity. suddenly if you were a dromaeosaurid... or sorry... "raptor"... you were cool as of this movie

sure the raptors in the movie did a lot to remove the sterotype that dinosaurs were stupid, but to be fair i know a lot of raptors... dromaesaurs to be percise, and they frankly aren't all their cracked up to be... you want a smart dinosaur talk to a troodon sometime. their way smarter then a raptor!

point is that as of jurassic park dinosaurs were cool again. museum's suddenly were willing to pay us dinos good money to live/work there. you were a prided display again, and not just something for the kids... though if you were a t-rex some of your majesty was diminished by our small hook footed relatives...

Human Dinosaur Relations

this is a subject of some interest to me (just check out my blogger personal profile, and see). how humans and dinosaurs can get along and co-exist. cause i have to face up to the fact that my kind for the most part went extinct 65 million years ago. i'm stuck in a human world, and how we get along determines how smoothly my life is going to go...

jurassic park was an amazing step toward bridging the human dinosaur gap. in the years before JP people had come see dinosaurs as monsters to fear. suddenly a new side of us was shown

in this famous scene with the brachiosaurus (she got an oscar nomination for this by the way!) humans were exposed to how we dinosaurs usually are. majestic, awe inspiring, and just plain awesome!

sadly it wasn't all positive strides though...

through the roles written for the theropods the sterotypes of us carnivores were reinforced. why a dilophosaur would hunt down a loser computer programmer is beyond me... now granted raptors are kind a jerks (though larry is the biggest jerk i know!) they won't hunt humans just for sport...

larry's role had one interestingly written part, that though a human died due to the t-rexs actions, was still seen as a good thing by human viewers. in a famous scene from the movie the tyrannosaurus eats a lawyer... this may be the only time i've ever heard of a dinosaur eating someone HELPING human dinosaur relations!

Best Part of the Movie

now this moment in the movie is purely an editorial of my own i expect many dinosaurs (raptors in particular) would pick a different part, but this is MY review so i'm going to pick my favourite part!

totally has to be the bit where larry rescues the humans from the raptors at the end of the movie. no claws down does any scene in the movie beat this one for me...

though i may personally hate larry i actually forget that in this scene. for this one moment captured on film larry is a guy (well in the film gal) you want to hang out with and make a kill with.

so in the movie the two human heroes (palaeontologists to the max) and the human children they've been protecting have been cornered by a pair of raptors. all hope looks lost. till suddenly out of no where larry catches the lead raptor mid pounce (this stunt only took one take! larry is as mean a rex as they come...) saving the pathetic humans. the remaining raptor proceeds to jump larry, and they battle to the death. resulting in one of the most dignifying t-rex moments in a movie ever where larry finally gets his jaws on the raptor and throws it to it's death, and lets out a classic tyrannosaur roar (which roughly translated into english means "taste it!").

my reason for picking it well larry just portrays our species so ferious yet noble at the same time. it is the dinosaur i want to be when i grow up...

it also may have to do with the fact he destroys the raptors too! man ever since this movie dromaesaurids walk around like they owe everything... they really should be reminded of their place by watching this scene again!

Overall Score
90%

the reason i docted it 10%.

their racist casting of the raptors combined with the complete humaliation and slander of dilophosaurs with that stupid frill.

the sterotyping of theropods as nothing more then killing machines...