Happy Halloween

Skull in the Sky by RobertVarulfur on deviantART

     Kid you not, one stormy afternoon I was gazing up at the stormy sky, watching lightning, when this cloud took form! Spooookkkkyyyyy~~~~~~~

Have a Good Halloween Guys! 

Movie Review - Edge of Tomorrow

   Movie Review Cheat Sheet

     Before I begin, a brief word on what it is I'm actually doing. Someone used the term critic to refer to what it is I'm planning, and it's no secret that there is rarely love for critics in the creative community.

    First off, I am not trying to be a critic, at least by the popular definition. In modern vocabulary, a critic is someone who expresses a NEGATIVE opinion of something. However, a critic is simply a person who states THEIR opinion on the merit of something (ie. movies). Occasionally my opinions may be negative, but just as often they may be positive.

     Secondly, people seem to have this idea that critics are only professionally paid people. Every time you walk out of a movie, turn to a friend or date and exclaim 'That was the coolest movie ever, did you see those special effects?' or 'Meh, the effects were awesome but that was literally just the storyline from Dances with Wolves' (The response I was given from a friend about Cameron's Avatar), every time someone states their opinion they are being a critic: someone who states their opinion. I'm not getting paid for this, I'm just speaking as a friend on the interwebs, explaining my opinion. Am I always right? No. Do I share the same opinion with everyone else? No. Do I enjoy it? Yep. And so that's why I'm doing it.

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Edge of Tomorrow

Summary: The story follows a man forced to fight a war he wanted to run from. The soldier becomes stuck in a time loop, allowing him to grow, both in strength and knowledge of his alien enemy as each time cycle is reset.

Main Actors: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt

Genre: Apocalyptic, Alien, Mech Warfare, Time Travel

Rating: C (Worth Seeing At Least Once)

BEWARE - SPOILERS POSSIBLE - BEWARE

Personal Review: This is what happens when gamers who can't decide why kind of movie they want to watch decide to make a movie! In a world brought to its knees by an alien lifeform, after suffering great losses the humans begin fighting back with exoskeletonal suits equipped with only the most explosive weapons, one man forced onto the front lines against his will gains the ability to reset the level, I mean world every time he dies until the point he can kill the final boss, I mean alien. I don't think I've seen a movie that's combined all these elements before so this is one instance where the sum is greater than the parts and that makes it worth it to watch at least once. 

Acting: C

     Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise. If you've seen one of his movies then you've already seen his character. He does a good job, but lets face it, when he is on screen there really are no other characters. (Of course we could chalk that up to the writers not his acting, so I gave him a solid performance C!)

     As for the other actors, they didn't really get enough screen time to be good or bad in my opinion. No one was openly bad, which settles them all into the average C category. Good job guys! (Once again, writers fault I suppose, not theirs). 

Writing: D+

      D+ does feel kinda harsh, but here's why. First off, like I said before, they took well-worn ideas and combined them in a new way (at least that I can think of, could be wrong!) and I did like that. And as an occasional gamer I got a kick out of the concept of a game in real life (resetting the world when you fail a level). 

     But! Beyond the concept the movie just fell somewhat short. Okay, to start with there was exactly one character in this story. 'But Tim,' you may be saying to your computer as if it were me. 'Don't most stories revolve around one characters journey?' They do, you are quite correct, but where this movie differs is that most stories have side characters who help move the story further and provide depth. This movie didn't really. 

     Due to the format they used for the time travel our main character is the only one with a memory of what had already happened. Which means there really couldn't be any development in any of the other characters (really there was only one other, the bad-ass warrior babe) because throughout the whole movie they HAD to be the same as when the movie started. 

     So on the one hand, you might say the authors did a good job keeping true to the form of time travel where no character except the time traveler changed. But on the other the authors did try to give them depth. All or nothing, I dislike writing that tries to have it both ways! So there were watered down attempts at depth, a car ride in which their past is discovered, Cruises character falling for a girl he'd known for many cycles despite the fact that the girl knew he for a day and a shared kiss. It was forced. 

     

     The other main contention I had of course was with the time travel. (First, let me mention that I LOVE time travel stuff because it's fun to pick apart. Inconsistencies is the bread and butter of time travel.) Okay, so there's the main alien 'brain' resetting the day any time one of its nerve centers (the blue aliens) is killed. The main character gets joined into this system so any time HE dies the world is reset. First off, this has happened to other humans, the Bad-ass warrior babe being an example. Second, according to her if the blood is diluted through a transfusion the power is lost. Third, there must be more that one nerve center at any time because even after the main character gets the power to reset time we still run into at least 2 of the alien nerve centers. 

     This question was actually posed by one of my friends. What happens if two people kill a nerve center at the same time? Or if someone has the ability and someone else, somewhere else kills a different nerve center. Whose world is reset? Would the second guy lose the ability since his day was reset after the first guy died? 

     What determines the reset? For our main character is was when he woke up the day before the attack that led to him getting the power. Why the day before and not the moment he was joined into the alien's ability? (The answer is because he was dying when he got the power, and there's no movie there). And then after he kills the 'brain' he goes back even further? First off if the alien is the reason that time is being reset if he kills is, why isn't that ability lost to him? And what is determining these save points? 

     And the final bit, when he is storming the Louvre where the alien brain is hiding they crash a freaken plane and not a single alien shows up until five minutes later, after they've had time to gather survivors, make a plan, and restart a plan which had just crashed landed before the alien soldiers appear. Lucky huh? But wouldn't you think a super intelligent alien whose greatest weakness is the defensiveness of its 'brain' would lead it to have some sort of protection? I mean they all but strolled up to it and poked it before the alien did anything to stop them.

     The alien was a cool concept and looked pretty awesome, but I feel like the writers didn't really put much thought into it. 

Visual: B+

     Okay, so I'm a sucker for advance technology. The exoskeletons were freaken awesome and I need one, or ten. Stark Industries, get right on that! The aliens were also pretty slick with their spinning and tentacles and exploding bodies with acid blood. And of course the man gamer eye candy of a bad-ass warrior babe, who instead of fighting with a guy like LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE has a giant knife. Yep. 

Audio: C

     Really, I don't have much to say on this point. Nothing special in my opinion but I'm usually more focused on the writing aspect that the audio aspect unless the audio somehow really plays into the story. (Thank you Inception and Alien)

Now hopefully you've watched it before reading the spoilers so in the comment section below tell me what you thought of it. Did you have other questions than I did. Think you have answers to my questions that I miss? Just have a totally different opinion than I did? I'd love to hear about it, and if this ever picked up steam, I might even do a midweek post where I repost the commenters opinions and respond to their questions!

Movie Review Cheat Sheet

     Starting back in high school after watching a movie for the first time a friend of mine would always ask everyone for a rating (A-F) and would have a likely discussion about its positive and negative aspects. (Loopholes were always my favorite part to discuss).

     I figured one of the things I could do for this blog was movie reviews. (Along with book and trail reviews!) So in honor of that fine gentleman's original rating system we used I've codified a rating system for myself (obviously based on common styles) and will keep it in this post as well as links to all my movie posts. 

All movies can be broken down into four sections: 

1. Performance
2. Writing
3. Audio
4. Visual

These four categories will each be rated A-F based on this scale:

• A = Amazing (Speechless)
• B = Above Average (Yeah that was pretty cool)
• C = Average (Not bad really, nothing special)
• D = Lacking (Okay I see what they were going for)
• F = Failed (What did I just watch?)

The movie will be given a total score using the A-F system as well:

• A = 'You need to own this movie'
• B = 'You'll want to watch it again at some point'
• C = 'It's worth seeing at least once'
• D = 'Watch it if you have nothing better to do'
• F = 'Do not waste your time'

All reviews will be broken into two parts, a brief summary with a general rating (total score). This part will have no spoilers (no more than you'd get from reading the back of the case anyways). Hopefully it'll help give readers an idea if they want to watch it or not. The second part will be an in depth grading and will likely contain spoilers. These sections will be clearly labeled. 

Tim's Movie Reviews:

• Edge of Tomorrow

Dreams of Flight

     This post is so late that after I post this post I shall have to post again just to get caught up! ugh. Excuse: Got quite a bit more hours at work (A fantastic thing truly), and it was Mid-Term week and I've been squirreling around so I was in full panic mode. (Still kinda am cause I haven't seen my scores. If I did poorly I may have to drop a class which is always embarrassing for a know-it-all).

     So I MEANT to post this last Monday as a follow-up to the previous post. I had a few questions about the photo of the well-hung inspiration to my pretzel creations, or at least I imagined I would as NO ONE COMMENTS. Seriously guys, ask questions! IT'S SO LONELY IN HERE. And by in here I mean inside my computer, because I'm cool like that and can digitize myself and literally surf the webs. 

      Anyways, this photography was taken on that Montana archaeology trip that I've discussed before. Our dig leader took us about twenty minutes out from our campsite (by the van of improbability, that thing should NOT have been able to drive where it did). We had to hike down into a canyon and true to my Holes name BillyGoat (You remember that Disney movie Holes where everyone got names like Barfbag and Caveman?) I was quickly separated from the majority of the group as they cautiously made their ways across rocks that I had climbed recklessly on all fours. 

      Scattered throughout the canyon were these carvings or people and animals and unfortunately, more recent names etched with dates only spanning back a few decades. Now I'm of mixed feelings about this of course. A lot of people will look at graffiti with distain and condemn those who did it. 

     However as a possible future archaeologist I can't help but see it as the petroglyphs and pictographs of the present. Honestly we do not know exactly why people carved and drew what they did so long ago. We have theories, some seem so likely that we except them for truths, but they are not. So when we look at a carving done several thousand years ago of a human hunting a deer is it really that different from a picture of a pot leaf? Both show us what a group of humans were doing during a particular time.  

     BUT! I do NOT condone the destruction of previous materials. So the guys who carved their names on a bolder near the petroglyphs on this canyon. Cool. Those who carved a giant penis  across ancient petroglyphs? Not cool assholes. 

     I digress, It was an interesting feeling to stand in a spot where humans had stood thousands of years ago and etched. To stand level with them in some ways and see the individual marks they made to create this representation. The sense of history, a feeling with not everyone gets to have when they step into an old church and an ancient campsite, was almost overwhelming. 

     Out of all the carvings though, this one was my favorite. Something about how the artist carved himself (or just a man) next to a thunderbird struck me as beautiful. Call it reading too much of myself in the stones etches of the past, but I'd like to thing this artist had dreams of flight, to see the world as the thunderbird did.

Dreams of Flight by RobertVarulfur on deviantART

Cow Patty Pretzels

Wow, is this blog ever late! This week has been crazy for me. It's the week before finals which means massive catchup PLUS due to someone leaving at the place I work I've been given more hours. (I badly needed them too so wahoo).

Anyways, here is 'this' weeks blog post. I'll try to get the next one up closer to Monday!

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My fiancee and I enjoy cooking together, though it's hard to find the time so a while back I had bought a pretzel making kit, and finally last week we were able to put the time into making it. (Truthfully it wasn't suppose to take that long, only about an hour).

Because it involved yeast I mixed the dough and set it aside myself so we could have fun making the shapes and such later. Sam, my fiancee, was busy with homework herself. (I should have been doing homework but I reached that point where I just couldn't do it anymore!)

So twenty five minutes pass, the dough looked like it nearly doubled in size, a good sign, so we set the table up for us to roll out the dough so we can shape it into the classic pretzel shape.

Only the dough was so sticky that we couldn't shape it. It was runny and just generally not something we could work with.

It was at this point that we realized that I had added about a cup of water too much to the mixture. Needless to say, I was annoyed with myself for a silly mistake.

But my lovely bride to be decided to try and fix it. So we pulled out the flour and she began adding flour like a true chef, without any measuring instrument. But I pointed out that the original mixture was likely more than just flour so we threw in some baking powder and some sugar and even some salt, just in case.

She managed to get the dough to a point where it was moldable, mostly. I didn't exactly have high hopes for the taste of the pretzels so instead of wasting my time trying to make them look like perfect pretzels, I started playing with the dough like it was play-doh.

Due to the elasticity of the dough no matter how hard we tried to shape them they ended up shrinking in on itself and Sam pointed out they looked like cow patties, hence the name Cow Patty Pretzels.

She made herself a Pretzel Person for fun because I made a mention that we could make stick figures out of them (Top Left). Not to be outdone, I made my pretzel person in the traditional design of the Native Americans of the Montana region (Bottom Left). #immaturearchaeology

Without high hopes for the final result of these pretzels we threw them into the oven. Much to my surprise they turned out pretty darn good. So the moral of this story is even if you screw something up, have fun with it and you might get a good story out of it.