Month: January 2007

actions speak louder through words

Since I may not have time to post much myself, I just wanted to send a pointer to some cool posting that’s going on elsewhere. There are a couple of bloggers who are organizing an ongoing project of collecting posts from their blogging community written about social causes. On the 10th of each month, the anniversary of a group wedding of minds, they have promised to post links to other posts written during the previous month. This month’s list can be found now on their respective blogs.

I’ve only had a chance to read a few of the posts so far, but the ones I’ve looked at treat a diverse range of issues including universal healthcare, climate change/global warming, racism, and excessive consumerism.

I’m hoping to be inspired and motivated to, at least periodically, post something of redeeming social value. But I can at least resolve to read what others have written. And reading counts. Awareness matters.

Potentially kick-ass women movies that probably suck

This is another installment of my ongoing project to collect, classify and critique movies, TV shows and other media that prominently feature kick-ass women. I started by putting together lists of my all-time favorite movies in this genre. (I also started a consolidated list, for quick reference, but have to update it.) A recent contribution to the project has come from another blogger, who put together a list of her 10 favorite Hong Kong kick-ass women movies. Other installments from me have included a couple of lists of movies that I haven’t yet seen, but would like to. I also recently made a list of movies with kick-ass women that I found disappointing. (Whether it was disapointment in the movie, or disappointment in the potentially kick-ass women.) This next list somewhat straddles the last two categories: movies with potentially kick-ass women that I haven’t seen, but don’t have high expectations for. In many cases, I’m (morbidly) curious about them, though.

9 potential kick-ass women movies I haven’t seen, am not sure I want to see, but have some morbid curiosity about

  1. Barb Wire (1996)
    This is the one starring Pamela Anderson (Lee). I really don’t expect anything redeeming about this movie, though I did read a review on imdb saying the movie is fun in a campy way.
  2. Batman & Robin (1997)
    This looks awful. I’ve read that it’s awful. But I’m somewhat morbidly curious about Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.
  3. Starship Troopers (1997)
    I stumbled across a mention of this one at some point in my “research,” but from a source I don’t have much trust in. Not sure the details on who the kick-ass woman is. It has Denise Richards and Dina Meyer. (Funny, I just typed Dina Richards and Denise Meyer…guess that reflects that I don’t really know either of their work.) Googling “Denise Richards” and the movie title brought up various mentions of breasts and sex scenes, which is not a good sign. Oh, and I did find this useful abridged version of the script, though.
  4. Out of Sight (1998)
    Jennifer Lopez plays a US Marshall. I vaguely recall that this is the movie where she lets her own ass get kicked due to mushiness for George Clooney.
  5. Entrapment (1999)
    I have very low expectations of this for 2 reasons: 1) Sean Connery, who is, as far as I can tell a misogynist. I blame him for some of the atrocities of The Avengers (1998). I don’t think he likes to have a character he plays bested by a woman. and 2) Catherine Zeta-Jones. I once read an interview with her in a magazine (I don’t even know which. I was probably in a waiting room somewhere) where she talked about the importance of the and the challenges associated with being…pretty.
  6. Miss Congeniality (2000)
    I have serious doubts about the kick-ass qualities of Sandra Bullock in this, but I’m curious. Looks to be a lightweight comedy.
  7. Lara Croft Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003)
    Angelina Jolie, once more. The first one was moderately disappointing. What should I expect from the sequel of a moderately disappointing movie?
  8. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
    I just don’t know if I can stomach this one. What with Arnold and all. Kristanna Loken plays a female terminator. That Arnold presumably whoops.
  9. Catwoman (2004)
    I wanted this one to be fun, but I heard it was pretty bad. (Although one friend of mine said she enjoyed it.) Halle Berry wears the catsuit.

dubious distinctions

I just got home from my violin lesson. I’ve been taking lessons for just over 3 years, or, as I think of it “not that long.” I was sitting in the music store where I have my lessons, in the waiting area outside the little closet-sized “studio” where I have my weekly lesson. A few other people were sitting around waiting for lessons, mostly some older kids accompanied by a parent. And just as I was reflecting on the short time I’d been studying, I heard the following exchange from some folks sitting across the way:

“Have you been playing long?” someone asked.

“Yeah,” answered the teenage girl and her father emphatically. “Almost 4 years.”

We can chalk that one up to another instance of me apparently having a somewhat distorted view of the passage of time. Or perhaps the relative perception of the length of a year, say, for me vs. a teenager. (I feel old.) And me vs. the parent of a teenager. (I feel scared.)

I’d also like to take this moment to boast that, according to my violin teacher, I am her “best adult student.” (I’d also like to add that most of her adult students have actually been studying the violin longer than I have, so it’s not totally a throwaway compliment.) (However, I also should point out that, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that none of them are likely to read this, her other adult students pretty much suck.)

(I’d also like to share that I’m having some trouble deciding what categories to check off for this post. I mean, should I put music? “Does learning to play the violin count as music?” I just asked myself. To which the response had to be “not the way I play it…” Oh, but what the hell.)

You think you know someone…

As I mentioned recently, John and I have been together for quite a while. Over 15 years, to be specific. So you’d think I’d know John pretty well. But he does find ways to surprise me.

John has a background in math and computer science. He’s been working in the computer industry since before we met, and in the years since I’ve known him, has become an expert in his subfield of the industry. John also is a technophile. He likes the cool toys, and has a weakness for electronics. So when John bought his first impressive digital camera, it didn’t surprise me. And when John started learning the ropes of photography technique and digital image processing, that didn’t surprise me, either. What did surprise me is that over the last couple of years, John has been taking some really beautiful photos. I didn’t know I’d married an artist.

Anyhow, I’m happy to say that John has started posting some of his photos on his blog. Three posts so far. Hopefully more to come.

I’ve been thinking that one of my new resolutions in the realm of blogging, once I get around to acknowledging the new year and writing them, should be to post more pictures on my blog. So I’ll take this opportunity to post some pictures. Below is one of John’s, of an abandoned mill in the town next to ours.

millshackfront.jpg

The lines of the structure actually reminded me a bit of a Shinto shrine. The vertical supports of the wall and the slightly curving horizontal edge of the roof suggest the shape of a gate to me. I was particularly reminded of a picture I took of a street-corner shrine I came across in Nara, Japan when I was there for a conference in 2004. Here’s a photo of it.

shrine1

And here’s another one, showing a bit more of the street.

shrine2

Another list of kick-ass women movies

Not one of my lists this time, though. I’m excited to share that another movie buff has put together a new list of some of her favorite kick-ass women movies on her site Webs of Significance. Check out her list of 10 kick-ass women movies, which features a selection of Hong Kong movies in the kick-ass women genre.

num skull

I like to think of myself as an optimist, if a cynical one. But I often find evidence of pessimism. And quite honestly, I am a worrier. And sometimes, when something little goes wrong, it doesn’t take me too many mental steps to arrive at a worst-case scenario.

Last night, I had a bit of trouble with a website interface involving typing text into a field on the page. I thought maybe it was a browser issue, and didn’t think too much of it. Everything else seemed to be working fine on my laptop. Then this morning, soon after I opened my laptop to check email and so forth (read: see if any one left any comments on the blog…), I found I couldn’t type. Almost none of the keys on the keyboard were working. I sort of tried a bunch of keys at random, and all that showed up on my screen (in various applications I tried) were a few numbers. Crap. I thought there must be something wrong with the laptop. I mean it’s going on 4 years old. Did this signify imminent laptop death? I could still use the mouse, so I thought maybe I should back up my data. But what if my data files were already corrupted, and then I’d overwrite my last backup? So I thought, maybe I should just restart. But then I was a afraid that, without being able to use the keyboard, I wouldn’t be able to even log in again. So I closed up my laptop to wait for reinforcements to deal with the issue. After the reinforcements woke up and had a swig of morning diet coke, I related my fears of laptop catastrophe. After running a battery of in-depth diagnostics (well, he opened my laptop and looked), John helped me make the discovery that there was a little green light below the “f6” key. A key that also bears the text “num lock.”

Almost 4 years with this laptop, and I never noticed I had a numbers lock? Doh!

My ability to talk with fish is of no help, Wonder Woman!

I’m not sure what recently reminded me of this Cartoon Network interstitial (new word for me, by the way) featuring Aquaman, Wonder Woman and the Powerpuff Girls. I hadn’t seen it in ages. (We don’t actually get Cartoon Network now, sadly. Just bottom of the barrel basic cable. which means no Comedy Central or SciFi, either. Sigh.) But thanks to the marvels of YouTube, I was able to watch it once more. (Actually more than once.) And since it’s late and I don’t have much time to write, I thought I’d share it. Because it is just so damn funny.

I particularly like the way Wonder Woman rolls her eyes in response to Aquaman’s statement.

Interestingly, this clip seems to contain an oft misquoted line. (Actually, it’s one I remembered wrong.) Searching Google for the misquote (“my ability to talk to fish”) gets more hits (26) than the right version (“my ability to talk with fish”), which gets only 8 hits. Different pages on Wikipedia feature two versions of the misquote:

“My ability to talk to fish is of no use to us, Wonder Woman!”

and

“My ability to talk to fish is of no help, Wonder Woman!”

9 disappointing kick-ass women movies

In my continuing quest to find media that prominently feature kick-ass women, I have come across examples of such that well…haven’t measured up. In some of these, a potentially kick-ass character was disappointingly wimpy. Or the actor/actress couldn’t pull off the role convincingly. In others, the movie was not great. In still other cases, the movie just plain sucked. Here’s the list of my biggest disappointments. As with previous lists, movies are ordered by year produced/released. With one big exception: I’m saving my all-time biggest disappointment for the end of the list.

9 kick-ass women movies I hoped would be better:

  1. …coming up at the end of the post…
  2. Cutthroat Island (1995)
    I really want to like this movie, and it has its moments. Geena Davis plays a pirate. How cool is that? Lots of action, fight scenes, chase scenes, etc. And Geena Davis plays a pirate. But somehow, unfortunately, it’s just not that good a movie. But Geena Davis plays a pirate!
  3. The Fifth Element (1997)
    I remember looking forward to this one, since I’ve liked Besson’s other movies, and since it appeared to prominently feature a kick-ass woman. I saw it in the theater. However, I found the movie to be generally pretty forgettable. (As in, at this point, I don’t remember much beyond some bright colors and some irritation with Bruce Willis.)
  4. Star Wars: Episode I – the Phantom Menace (1999)
    This movie disappointed so many in so many ways. One of the ways in which it disappointed me was that I thought there was an opportunity for Natalie Portman to kick some ass. I was unimpressed. (And things just got worse in Episode II…)
  5. Rush Hour 2 (2001)
    Another movie I don’t remember too well. This one has Zhang Ziyi, playing a kick-ass villainous type. Problem is, she seems pretty unstrung, from what I remember. And of course, she’s not the star, so her character doesn’t get to win.
  6. Tomb Raider (2001)
    While Angelina Jolie did kick ass moderately well in this, the movie was pretty weak overall. I do remember a few cool fight scenes. I should probably give it another chance.
  7. Daredevil (2003)
    Another movie I really wanted to like. Probably because of Kevin Smith‘s involvement, as well as being a comic book/superhero movie. But let’s face it. Ben Affleck is just not convincing as a superhero. But Jennifer Garner kicked ass as Elektra in spite of things. At least in the fight scenes.
  8. Underworld (2003)
    I loved Kate Beckinsale in Cold Comfort Farm (one of my all-time favorite movies, though not in the kick-ass woman genre). However, this movie was…well…not great. And Kate was not terribly convincing in an action role.
  9. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
    I’m not sure what was going on with this movie. I found the first one entertaining and funny. This one just pained me.

And here it is. My all time biggest disappointment in a movie in the kick-ass women category:

  1. The Avengers (1998)
    How could they???

To say that The Avengers (1998) movie disappointed me would be like saying Everest is a pretty big mountain. That eating the chicken salad sandwich you left in your car all one hot July day may lead to stomach upset. That the Hindenberg disaster was the result of an unfortunate mishap. What I’m saying is that this movie was a gigantic, mountainous gut-spewing fireball of a disaster.

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate. In that my expectations were pretty low, so I supposed the disappointment level couldn’t have been that extreme. But please understand that I love the Avengers show, at least in its 1965-1967 incarnation. That I have idolized the character Emma Peel, as portrayed by Diana Rigg, since my formative teenage years.

This movie had a variety of “flaws” (Ralph Fiennes’ cardboard performance as Steed, the inclusion of the character “Mother,” Sean Connery’s unconvincing role as a megavillain, to name a few), which could have been overlooked if only the portrayal of the character Emma Peel had been appropriately…like Emma Peel. But she just wasn’t. Uma didn’t cut it.

I actually got a fair amount of enjoyment, after I saw the movie, just from ranting about how many things they got wrong. Believe it or not, I want to watch it again. So that I can relive those rants, and perhaps share them here.

New Year’s resolutions for 2006

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve made a list of New Year’s resolutions. And here it is, the beginning of another new year, and it seems like a wonderful opportunity to set some goals. Having a new baby can lead to difficulties in getting many things done, so I’ve decided to set some goals that I know can be achieved. Namely, some that I’ve already reached.

A New Mother’s Retroactive Resolutions for 2006

  1. Personal appearance: Lose 10 pounds
    Physical appearance is important to so many people, and I think weight loss often tops people’s New Year’s resolution lists. I can honestly boast that I lost at least 10 pounds in a single night! While the process wasn’t exactly painless, it sure was quicker than dieting.
  2. Health and fitness: Exercise more
    Another common goal is to improve one’s fitness levels. And I did indeed “exercise more” in 2006. The trick to this one is to take advantage of the inherent ambiguity of the term more. Since it is necessarily a relative or comparative term (i.e. something can be/have/do/etc. more XXX than some other thing), I choose to leave out the specifics of the comparison. For example, if I wanted to say “I plan to exercise more than I have been exercising” my resolution would have failed. However, if I consider my resolution to mean something like “I plan to exercise more than various people who are a) comatose b) dead or c) of a more extreme couch potato nature than even myself,” I have achieved this goal in spades.
  3. Fine arts: Write a song
    Let’s not leave out creative and artistic growth. I actually wrote several original compositions, complete with lyrics. My greatest hits include “The Diaper Song” (We’re changing the diaper, and we’ll put a new diaper on…put a new, put a new, put a new, put a new diaper on.) and “The Bouncy Song” (I have a little girl, her name is Phoebe Lenore, and she likes to bouncy bouncy…bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy Phoebe…)
  4. Feeding the mind: Read some books
    It’s always important to strive for intellectual breadth and depth. I’m happy to say that I’ve read quite a few books this year. Many of them quite thick ones. Well, with thick pages, at least. And I’ve even gone as far as to nearly memorize several of them, including: Goodnight Moon (Brown), Bear Snores On (Wilson), The Foot Book (Seuss), Quiet Loud (Patricelli) and The Going to Bed Book (Boynton).
  5. Home improvements: redecorate the house
    Let’s not forget the home. I can quite honestly say that there have been many changes to the appearance of our home. Not a single room looks the same. The new look is definitely more colorful than ever! The new palette includes a shift from earthy tones (mostly muted browns and grays, typically represented by wood and stone) to an array of chartreuse, tangerine, fuchsia, cerulean and lemon yellow. Mostly represented in plastic and some plush.
  6. Productivity and daily routine: Wake up earlier in the morning
    Who doesn’t want to feel more productive? I used to frequently waste the day away by sleeping until 8:00 a.m., or even snoozing in past 10:00 on weekends. I now always wake up before 7:00 a.m. There are even many days when I wake up before dawn: by 6:00, or 5:00, and sometimes even 4:00! And I don’t even need to set the alarm clock.
  7. Etiquette: write and mail thank you notes in a timely manner
    This one is for real, actually. Though the interpretation of “timely manner” may be subject to my own somewhat lax standards. I determined that I should finish writing thank you notes for the presents given for my daughter’s birth (in February 2006) within the same calendar year as her birth. I am bound and determined to achieve this goal. (Don’t quibble with me over today’s date. I will have those letters written in 2006.)
      8. our new living room decor
      Our new living room decor.