i saw the movie last night, and boy was i impressed! the writing was fabulous, the cinematography was beautiful, and the acting was terrific.

in honor of my new favorite movie, here are some pictures of diane kruger, who i initially went to see the movie for (i LOVE national treasure). who knew she spoke so many languages? also very impressive!

from the movie:

parting words: go see this movie! seriously. you won’t be sorry. unless you don’t like blood… but then you can just cover your eyes.

Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer as Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra in Angels & Demons

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is back as the renowned Harvard symbologist in “Angels & Demons”.  The pope has died and before the church can select a successor, an assassin hired by the Illuminati has kidnapped the four likely candidates (the preferati) and threatens to kill one member every hour starting from 8 p.m.  On top of that, there is a bomb that threatens to kill everyone in Vatican city before the stroke of midnight.  Robert Langdon is summoned to the Vatican in order to help decipher some clues which leads him to the path of illumination. A physicist by the name of Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) comes to Robert’s aid in this race against time.  Can Robert and Vittoria help save the preferati and save Vatican city from annihilation?

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD**

“Angels & Demons” is based off the book (of the same name) by best selling author Dan Brown.  I have read both “The Da Vinci Code” and “Digital Fortress” by Dan Brown, but going into this movie – I did not read the book beforehand.  “Angels & Demons” seemed to have a formula that was oh too familiar.  Don’t get me wrong, I was entertained by the movie, but I was a little disappointed that is wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.  I felt like I was watching a rehash of “The Da Vinci Code” crossed with “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets”.  Director Ron Howard definitely creates the right mood for a suspense thriller, but it lacked the “surprise” factor. You can almost infer every moment throughout the movie, and I think it’s because of the way the film was edited.  The film doesn’t lack continuity, it was just edited in a way that made it seem too predictable and it really left nothing to the imagination.  Some of the scenes were so hackneyed and trite that it was almost laughable.  There was one scene where Robert is locked in a room and due to an electrical outage; he was loosing oxygen. Then just when you think all hope is lost of course he manages to get out of the room and I thought to myself…watch the power come back on the minute he gets out – and long and behold…the power comes on just as he escapes.  (Wow…that was original!)  Going back to the story, Robert figures out that each preferati member will be murdered at each of the four alters which are Earth, Water, Air, and Fire along the path of illumination.  I think it is really obvious that Robert manages to get to each place with minutes to spare, but can he save these people in time?  What was an attempt to cause suspense just turned into cliched story telling.  I wonder if upon reading the script (or even the book), were the answers as obvious as it was on screen?

As I mentioned before, “Angels and Demons” reminded me (in some ways) of “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets”. I think it is because in this movie, Robert Langdon seems to figure out the answers to clues way too quickly without even second guessing himself just like Nicolas Cage’s character, Benjamin Franklin Gates in the National Treasure 2 movie.  I feel like in “The DaVinci Code”, the clues lead the characters to a new puzzle at each turn which allowed for more intrigue especially when it came time for the big reveal.  This movie was more like…here is the question…Robert knows the answer already…can he get there in time?  Veni, vidi, vici…(I came, I saw, I conquered).

I feel bad…it sounds like I didn’t like the film, and in truth…it wasn’t a bad film, but it wasn’t great either.  Watching this film and having read other books by Dan Brown, I can’t help but to notice a pattern that is really apparent, none more revealing than in this movie.  Good guy turns out to be the bad guy, ok…let’s get the real bad guy before the end of the world. I know…a bit dramatic but at the core that’s how it plays out.

What Worked?

The cast.  I can’t deny this film had great casting.  The supporting characters were great and with a movie that didn’t have much intrigue to it – I found their performances were great.  You really see the internal struggle for some of these characters on what they have to face in the movie. Figuratively speaking,  an internal battle between “angels” and “demons”. I’ve also noticed in Dan Brown’s books is that he has one strong female character and like “The Da Vinci code”, that role was fulfilled by Vittoria.  She had a strong personality that was very complimentary toward Robert Langdon’s character without being overshadowed.  The scene stealer was Ewan McGregor.  His performance was the best part of the movie.  He was awesome! 

What didn’t work?

As I mentioned before…the editing of this film is the downfall of this movie.  I know it is hard to fit a 700+ page book into a 2 and a half hour movie, but the editing just revealed all of the events of the story too easily. 

Final Thoughts:

I think this is the type of film that you either love it or hate it.  I’m not deterring anyone from seeing the film, but I would suggest to see it as a matinee.  Otherwise I would just rent it.  Out of a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this movie a 6, but if I were to grade the film…it would be a C- border line D.  In my opinion, ”The Da Vinci Code” was a better film than “Angels and Demons” by a country mile.

 I was re-watching National Treasure 2 last night and I really think it is the best movie made by Disney (except from maybe National Tresure 1) because Disney is all to happy-ish and non-violent-ish….dont you just like the sound of ish?? Ok, so here is one of the best scenes from the movie…THE LONDON CHASE!

(if there is annoying music, please ignore it!)

see what i mean by Disney usually being all happy-ish?

Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) sets out to find the lost 18 pages from the diary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. One of the 18 missing pages has been discovered by Jeb Wilkinson (Ed Harris). On that page are the names of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Thomas Gates, Ben Gates’ great-great-grandfather, is listed on the page. After discovering this, Ben does not want Thomas Gates to be remembered “as a conspirator in the assassination of the man who brought this nation together.” His quest to clear his family’s name leads to unexpected twists and turns. Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel) tells Ben that a secret book has the information he needs. The president’s “book of secrets” holds documents, for presidents’ eyes only, of all the nations secrets; from the truth behind the JFK conspiracy, the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes, and Area 51. When Ben’s request to see the book is denied, he says he must kidnap the president. Each clue leads him closer “to a discovery that the world isn’t ready to believe.”

Less engrossing than its 2004 predecessor National Treasure, Jon Turteltaub�s busy sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets is nevertheless a colorful and witty adventure, another race against overwhelming odds for the answer to a historical riddle. Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), the treasure hunter who feverishly sought, in the first film, the whereabouts of a war chest hidden by America�s forefathers, is now charged with protecting family honor. When a rival (Ed Harris) offers alleged proof that Gates� ancestor, Thomas Gates, was not a Civil War-era hero but a participant in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Ben and his father (Jon Voight) and crew (Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger) hopscotch through Paris, London, Washington DC, and South Dakota to gather evidence refuting the claim. The film is most fun when the hunt, as in National Treasure, squeezes Ben into such impossible situations as examining twin desks in the queen�s chambers in Buckingham Palace and the White House�s Oval Office, or kidnapping an American president (Bruce Greenwood) for a few minutes of frank talk. Helen Mirren, the previous year’s Oscar winner for Best Actress, wisely joins the cast of a likely hit film as Ben�s archaeologist mother, long-estranged from Voight�s character but as feisty as the rest of the family. Returning director Turteltaub takes excellent advantage of his colorful backdrops in European capitals and the always-eerie Mount Rushmore, and oversees some wildly imaginative sets for this dramedy�s feverish third act in an audacious and completely unexpected, legendary setting. If National Treasure: Book of Secrets doesn�t feel quite as crisp and unique as its predecessor, it is still ingenious and wry enough to laugh a bit at itself. –Tom Keogh

National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets (Widescreen) is available at Amazon for $14.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• National Treasure (Widescreen Edition)
• The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)
• Jumper
• 10,000 B.C.
• The Bucket List

Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) sets out to find the lost 18 pages from the diary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. One of the 18 missing pages has been discovered by Jeb Wilkinson (Ed Harris). On that page are the names of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Thomas Gates, Ben Gates’ great-great-grandfather, is listed on the page. After discovering this, Ben does not want Thomas Gates to be remembered “as a conspirator in the assassination of the man who brought this nation together.” His quest to clear his family’s name leads to unexpected twists and turns. Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel) tells Ben that a secret book has the information he needs. The president’s “book of secrets” holds documents, for presidents’ eyes only, of all the nations secrets; from the truth behind the JFK conspiracy, the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes, and Area 51. When Ben’s request to see the book is denied, he says he must kidnap the president. Each clue leads him closer “to a discovery that the world isn’t ready to believe.”

Less engrossing than its 2004 predecessor National Treasure, Jon Turteltaub�s busy sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets is nevertheless a colorful and witty adventure, another race against overwhelming odds for the answer to a historical riddle. Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), the treasure hunter who feverishly sought, in the first film, the whereabouts of a war chest hidden by America�s forefathers, is now charged with protecting family honor. When a rival (Ed Harris) offers alleged proof that Gates� ancestor, Thomas Gates, was not a Civil War-era hero but a participant in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Ben and his father (Jon Voight) and crew (Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger) hopscotch through Paris, London, Washington DC, and South Dakota to gather evidence refuting the claim. The film is most fun when the hunt, as in National Treasure, squeezes Ben into such impossible situations as examining twin desks in the queen�s chambers in Buckingham Palace and the White House�s Oval Office, or kidnapping an American president (Bruce Greenwood) for a few minutes of frank talk. Helen Mirren, the previous year’s Oscar winner for Best Actress, wisely joins the cast of a likely hit film as Ben�s archaeologist mother, long-estranged from Voight�s character but as feisty as the rest of the family. Returning director Turteltaub takes excellent advantage of his colorful backdrops in European capitals and the always-eerie Mount Rushmore, and oversees some wildly imaginative sets for this dramedy�s feverish third act in an audacious and completely unexpected, legendary setting. If National Treasure: Book of Secrets doesn�t feel quite as crisp and unique as its predecessor, it is still ingenious and wry enough to laugh a bit at itself. –Tom Keogh

National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets (Widescreen) is available at Amazon for $14.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• National Treasure (Widescreen Edition)
• The Golden Compass (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)
• Jumper
• 10,000 B.C.
• The Bucket List

Oh Nic Cage, why?

This guy is probably the weirdest actor to somehow randomly have become a marquee player, but he seems to sleepwalk through nearly every role he gets now (cough, Next, cough National Treasure 1 and 2, cough).

There was a time when Nicolas Cage stunned with his bizarre, rangy performances as twins in Adaptation. It seems that time has passed, at least temporarily.

As Cage continues to do one goofy looking attempted blockbuster after another, you start to lose patience.

It used to be fun to see Cage at least play against the machine by being weird in these huge movies, but he doesn’t really do that so much anymore, at least in the last few movies of his I’ve seen (which sadly includes Next, I’ll never get that time back).

The good news is Alex Proyas (director of the magnificent Dark City) is on board.

The bad news is this looks a lot like The Number 23 with Jim Carrey.

That’s not a good thing.

Check the trailer here and judge for yourself:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/knowing/

And here you thought you would get a load of my innermost feelings. Well, boo-hoo…

Took off some 30 minutes early from work. Went to shopping for TDK, found it. Also found NT2 – BoS quite cheap. The nice girl behind the counter gave me a big-ass TDK poster. All in all, a good visit to Sci-fi-bokhandeln.

This a a picture of the movie. Really Cool!!!!!!!!

This post is about one of the scenes in the movie National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. The movie is a sequal to first National Treasure. In this movie, treasure hunter Ben Gates is trying to prove that his great great grandpop did not help in the assassination of President Lincoln. Along the way, he finds a way to get to the lost City of Gold. In the scene under here, he is being chased by other treasure hunters in London, England, after he finds a clue that will lead him to his treasure.

I really like this movie, and this scene is my favorite.

Andrew

Well, I’ve decided to do a recollection of anything recent and worth blogging about so here we go!

UC apps are due soon, unfortunately ive got 2/3 of prompt one done and about two sentences of prompt two. I’m horrible, I know. School is definitely a reason why my personal statements are not done, but even if I had the free time, why would I WANT to write them? I admit that I did today, write some. I felt accomplished and went to watch National Treasure 2 with my parents. Oh that Nicolas Cage, what a stud. (Just kidding) He’s got well defined cheek bones, if that’s what they are. You know, those lines from your eye down to about your mouth? Enough talking about Mr. Nicolas Cage’s facial features, I’d give the movie 4.5 stars out of 5. It was a good movie, it had it’s funny parts. My favorite was when he stuck his hand in between these two rocks and started screaming. Of course everyone thought he was hurt so they were screaming, but he was just kidding. It was funny despite the fact that that is done very often. However towards the end of the movie when they’re wandering around Mount Rushmore, the lighting is very poor. You can barely tell who’s face is whose, and in which part of the cave people are in. But good story, I liked it.

That really isn’t a reason why I’ve procrastinating now that I think about it, so here is reason number one. I’ve recently been obsessed with my new Asian sensation SHINee, a group of teenage Korean guys.
Onew (The Leader): Grey hat and blazer. Born in the year 1989, Onew stands at 5′10″ blood type O. I sound like a major stalker, but that’s what the websites say. Onew is definitely my favorite. Not because he’s the leader because I didn’t know that when I first saw their music video for Replay (Noona you’re so pretty). He has a wonderful smile and he’s just so adorable.

Jonghyun (Bling Bling): Red wristband. Born 1990, Jonghyun is 5′8″ (HAHA Onew is taller sucker.) I’d say he’s my…3rd favorite. Maybe 2nd because he sings Y Fuera Ella which is my FAVORITE song (next to Replay). He has very good vocal range and that song is just wow. He has big nostrils. :3

Taemin (The Maknae): Green shirt. Born in 1993, he’s only 14! 5′8″ but he still looks too much like a kid. Sorry, but you’re on the bottom. Too young and he has this kind of…creepy smile. And that bowl cut, not for me.

Minho (Charismatic Flame): Hand on knee staring directly at you. Minho is also born in 1990, however 5′11″ (Darn you, one inch taller than Onew). He is above Taemin on my favorite list, so that would make him…4th. He’s also got this creepy look. And in the music video for Amigo, he has this blank expression that’s very unflattering in the beginning. Nothing else is wrong with him, just Onew is better.

Key (The Almighty Key): Yellow striped shirt. Key is born 1991, same age as me! Also 5′10″ he is my second favorite. Close second actually. Only thing is Onew has a better smile. Key has more of a… I don’t know how to put it. But they’re both my favorites :]

This is one of my favorite videos of them singing karaoke:

Onew is so cute with his maraca <3

Second reason why I’ve been procrastinating would have to be manga. I’ve read a lot of manga this past week probably because I don’t want to do work. My favorite manga I read is definitely Hot Gimmick by Miki Aihara. Hatsumi is a girl who lives with her family in the building owned by Ryouki’s family. She gets caught buying an at home pregnancy test and Ryouki tells her to become his slave. But then her childhoo friend Azusa comes back to town and decides he wants her to become his girlfriend. Ryouki get’s angry and forbids her to see him, but she doesn’t listen. On top of that, Hatsumi’s brother, Shinogu, has a crush on his sister. Ryouki later forms feelings for Hatsumi and everyone becomes angry and starts fights, have sex, pretend to have sex, and other good stuff. Full of drama, twists and turns, this was definitely on of those mangas where you need to keep reading. I give it a 5 out of 5. The artwork was fantastic, story was awesome, and it always kept me wanting to keep reading. (Reason why I lost sleep that week and failed a test..) Definitely read it even if you’re a guy.

Third reason is Ninja Town for Nintendo DS. A defensive game with ninjas and devils that starts out amazingly easy, but then gets annoyingly difficult. These ninjas are also part of the Top Friends Facebook application. The mood part. Anyway you place ninjas with special (or just plain ninjas) on the map, and as the rush of devils come in, you must defend your town! Sounds easy? Guess again. They definitely limit the amount of cookies (Ninjatown currency) you get per devil killed making it difficult to either upgrade current ninjas, or build new ones. The devils get increasingly difficult and come in bigger mobs. On top of that, they start to pile mobs on top of mobs making it even harder! AHhh!!!!! It’s hard and makes me sad. =[

Those are actually the only reasons why I’ve been procrastinating. More currently in my life however…

Toki Doki creator Simone Legno was doing signings at the Union Square Macy’s. Of course, I went, so did my boyfriend Michael. We waited in line from 10:40 AM to 1 PM. That’s when he started signing. After he started we waited another…30 minutes – 1 hour. My legs are tired, but it sure was worth it. I was surprised (sort of) at how American looking he..looked. Decked out in all Toki Doki clothing he didn’t look Italian at all, except his nose. And he had a strong Italian accent. I ended up buying a new bag that I got signed. Bought a SANDy doll from Japan Town that Michael got signed (for me), and because I bought a bag, I got a signed fan. Woo hoo. Met some weird people though…

That is all. Time to go sleep.

P.S. This is a hella long post…

age of decadence (game), superman sues, hexadecimal time & national treasure 2 (2007 movie) all after the break…

age of decadence (game)…

i’ve been watching the development of this game for quite some time now. i have no idea when this game will come out but i hope that it hits the stores (yes, real stores that you actually walk into) by this time next year. yes, real stores, i’m too lazy &/or paranoid to buy things over the internet. maybe if i can call up & order it, i’ll do that. the internet is just too insecure.

“age of decadence” is what “fallout 3″ fanbois masturbate about when they think of what “fallout 3″ might have been like had not bethesda got it’s grubby little paws on the fallout ip. granted, age of decadence takes place in some pseudo-d&d era & is about the devastation that occurs when there is no more magic in a land that was very reliant on magic. or something.

anyway, it’s turn-based, isometric, about a post-apocalyptic era, an rpg & has other little “hard rpg” code words that hard rpg lovers tend to like. i have no idea when it’s coming out but i wish “iron tower” (the developers) the best of luck & maybe it’ll be good enough to revive the crunchy old hard rpg genre that seems to have gone the way of the text adventure. you never know.

superman sues…

having had a slight historical bend for comic books in my youth, i’ve always had the slight belief that superman survived not just because it was one of the first comic books & “it got it right” but also because superman was never shy of filing a legal complaint. apparently, someone recently put together an article of all the times that superman has met his competitors in court rather then in the comics. i’ll spare you the research – superman has won far more often then he hasn’t, fairly or otherwise.

this conclusion leads me to the belief that the best strategy for surviving is just a pummeling, non-stop legal offense. seriously, i’m seeing a trend – the walt disney has had a well-documented history of being very un-family-values-like in it’s defense of the walt disney brand & it survived to become, well, a giant. the same thing with microsoft. the same thing with superman. the same thing, even to a lesser degree, with a certain unnamed “religion” that begins with the letter “s” & rhymes with “tie-in-all? oh gee!” well, truth be told, all religions act like jerk-offs whenever they can get away with it. so much for that “turn the other cheek” crapola they teach us bottom-feeders, right?

anyway, it’s just a little depressing to know that sasholes run amok in the upper-echelons of our society & not only get away with it but smile the entire time as well.

hexadecimal time…

i guess i’m about 11 years (or 150 some odd years) too late to be in on the ground floor of this nerdy geeky concept.

here’s the concept – change everything to hexadecimal (read: 16 instead of 10), starting with the way we tell time. some guy named nystrom wanted hexadecimal everything (weights, money, linear measurement, etc.) & wrote a book about it that’s currently in google books. then, in 1997, some other guy revived it & invented the “hexclock.”

ok, on the surface, a pretty cool topic. nystrom, belated, gets a little gold star of the day.

however…

1. how do you divide things into thirds? that’s the beauty of the # 12 (and it’s derivatives like 24, 36, etc.) because it allows you to divide by 2, 3, 4 & 6. 16 drops the 3 & the 6 but then adds an 8 (giving you 2,4 & 8). that’s better?
2. imperial measurements, for all of it’s “34 schlongschlongs equals 1 doucleberry” or some other silly measurement, actually work. the metric system was foisted upon unsuspecting people by wealthy people so that the wealthy people could make more money. so i’m told.
3. nobody uses all of those intermediate measurements on either side of the pond. we don’t use furlongs too much & they don’t use hekameters or hecameters or whatever they’re called. look, we use inches, feet, yards & miles. they use centimeters, meters & kilometers. seriously… i’ve heard foreigners say to the effect, “it’s about half a kilometer down the road.” half a kilometer… isn’t that like 5 hecameters or whatever you divide a kilometer into 10 equal parts? why not say that instead?

look, i ain’t trying to kick a dead nystrom fellow dead for wanting to think outside the box. thinking outside the box has given us some pretty cool things over the years, like the character “yoda” from “star wars” & velcro. however, as screwed up as some measurement things are (qwerty keyboard, wonky calendar) i’d rather have smart people inspecting bridges rather then coming up with new & exciting ways to tell me that it’s noontime. give me clean drinking water first, then you can go & make a new car that hops around like a bunny rabbit because wheels are just so darn “boring.”

national treasure 2: book of secrets (2007 movie)…

my heart really isn’t into much today. let me explain. it was supposed to rain today. there you go – rain for today. the way they were making it sound, i was expecting to wake up to a downpour. nah. i woke up to dry weather. so, i figure, stupidly, “the rain will arrive any moment.” nah. rain still hasn’t shown up.

i go to check the radar &, sure enough, rain is coming. my slothiness is justified; why bother working outside today when rain will pretty much wipe everything out anyway? so, about an hour later, the rain does show up… for about 3 minutes. a light sprinkle. there you go, there’s our rain. the big rain that the forecasters were warning us about for who-knows-how-many-fcuking days! thank you, weather-fcuking-forecasters for the heads up on the light drizzle that lasted all of 3 fcuking minutes! thank you! thank you so very fcuking much!

you know, i’m not a workaholic when there’s no paycheck involved. money? yeah, i’ll work my butt off. no money? screw you, i’m kicking back & relaxing for awhile if you don’t mind. i have to psyche myself up in order to work like that; i’m not perfect. so, when someone tells me there’s going to be rain & then there’s no rain… well, i just can’t psyche myself up to do much work. i did a little work outside almost as a consolation prize (remember consolation prizes? whatever happened to those things?) but it really wasn’t what i had wanted to do because what i had wanted to do i could’ve done if the fcuking weather forecasters hadn’t blown up a 3-minute light drizzle into the monsoons that’ll flood the whole fcuking northern fcuking hemisphere!

what does this have to do with some crappy “da vinci code” wanna-be movie? next to nothing. except for the fact that, because i was doing nothing & couldn’t motivate myself to work, i decided to watch it just to say that i watched it.

“national treasure 2: book of secrets” is the sequel to “national treasure.” if you don’t know the franchise, it’s simply “the da vinci code” minus the silly religious hysterics. a bunch of people follow clues left behind centuries earlier to a big, undiscovered treasure. there’s your movie. enjoy.

i just don’t know the appeal of these kind of movies. i mean, i understand why “low-information” (read: morons) would like something like this because it’s a videogame secretly disguised as a movie & has just enough interactivity to keep the adhd-kiddies from going back onto the internet to troll for delicious pr0n. however, as an actual movie… well, there’s nothing there.

i know i’m late to the party but i get it – movies need to keep your attention & they’ve gone back to a tried-&-true formula… the mystery that you can help solve, too. what’s old is new again to a new generation & blah blah biddity blah blah.

nicholas cage stars as some guy who’s now slightly famous after his discoveries in the first film but his great-great-whomever is framed by some piece of evidence to have been involved in the plot to kill abraham lincoln & in order to clear his name he has to find some city made out of gold. yes, you read that right. it doesn’t even make sense when someone serious writes it so don’t worry if you didn’t grasp the concept.

you know, i’m just too old for these movies. it’s the same reason why adults don’t breathlessly wait for each new episode of “sesame street” – i’m intellectually starved, gddammit! fcuking feed me already! i just could not get into this movie.

• why do they need to find a city of gold?
• you do realize that you can’t make entire structures out of gold because gold is so fcuking soft, right? it has to be some sort of alloy if you want to build these huge fcuking temples out of your fcuking gold, right?
• if living in the early 1800’s & such was such a hard fcuking way to live, how did they have all this time to build elaborate fcuking secret rooms & whatnot, all of which still work fairly perfectly centuries later?

you know, it’s one thing to have just a movie about just a treasure hunt but then you have to deal with some sort of book of presidents, romance, some sort of villain who really isn’t a villain (ed harris must’ve been crying with laughter when he received his paycheck for this lightweight film – i bet he considered putting a mannequin in his place & seeing if the director even noticed).

ok, that’s another thing – ed harris wins the award for lamest villain… ever. seriously. why did they even bother putting a villain in this film to begin with? why? there’s a riddle puzzle whatever that they can answer.

you know, if you guys want to make a videogame, just make a fcuking videogame! don’t make a movie that pretends to be just like a videogame but it isn’t! ooohhh! have the balls to sign up some developers & make a fcuking 3d adventure game, slap “national treasure” on it, market it to the kiddies or whatnot & leave movies to be actual movies.

that’s not too hard to follow, is it?

Virtual nobody Heather Graham (Miss Conception) will star in The Hangover from director Todd Phillips (Starsky & Hutch). The Vegas-set bachelor party-type comedy, which has just started filming, also stars Bradley Cooper (Wedding Crashers), Justin Bartha (the National Treasure films), Ed Helms (Meet Dave) and Zach Galifianakis (What Happens In Vegas) among others. I don’t know but for now, can I say “yawn”?

Source

It seems ages ago that Inkheart’s first trailer premiered, and that’s because, well, it was. Indeed, the fantasy film was to be originally released around Christmas 2007, but instead was delayed again and again, which usually isn’t a good sign but might be explained by the trouble New Line Cinema was having at the time.

The story centers around 12 year old Meggie and her father Mo, who has the power to bring characters from books into the real world when he reads aloud. Turns out Mo discovered his power when his daughter was only a baby, and accidentally sent his wife into a book while reading Meggie a story. That, and an evil dude wants to use Mo’s power.

Based on the first book of a popular German trilogy of fantasy novels written by Cornelia Funke (The Thief Lord), who serves as a producer for the movie, Inkheart was adapted by David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots) and directed by Iain Softley (The Skeleton Key). It stars Brendan Fraser (the new Mummy movies), Eliza Bennett (The Contractor), Andy Serkis (The Cottage), Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code), Helen Mirren (National Treasure: Book Of Secrets), Jim Broadbent (Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull) and Sienna Guillory (Eragon) among others.

I think the aforementioned first trailer was better made, but this still looks pretty good, I’m a sucker for (good) fantasy and I must say quite like some of the talent involved. What do you think? Does Inkheart have what it takes to join the closed circle of fantasy winners? The movie will premiere in Germany on December 11th, and will get releases in the rest of the world throughout early 2009.

The Walt Disney Company had a big presentation a couple of days ago where they announced a bunch of new movies, including three starring Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street). These are a new adaptation of The Lone Ranger written by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio (National Treasure: Book Of Secrets) where Depp will play Tonto and George Clooney (Burn After Reading) might play the titular character, a new part live-action/part CGI adaptation of Alice In Wonderland written by Linda Woolverton (Mulan) and directed by frequent collaborator Tim Burton (Sweeney Todd…) so yeah obviously, and as expected, a fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean film.

Source

It was also announced that Cars 2 would be released in 2011 instead of 2012 and that the story will have Mater joining Lightning McQueen on a world tour. Additionally several short films entitled Car-toons will be set between the two films and will air on the Disney Channel and perhaps before some theatrical films. Thus, the Disney/Pixar film originally planned for 2011, Newt, will instead be released in 2012.

Source

No personnel changes today as yet (i.e. still the dozy French guy, the quiet English guy, the two Spaniards, Will and me), so I can dive straight into today’s events. First and foremost, the eight-year wait is over at last – AC/DC finally brought out their new single Rock ‘n Roll Train today, with the album Black Ice to be released on 20.x. The single has been set as the background music on the band’s website, but I was too unawake this morning to fully appreciate the song in all its glory. Now I’m back from my day’s peregrination, however, I’ve been listening to it on loop at the highest volume my laptop will allow, and what can I say? It’s an understatement to say that I highly recommend it, and that I will be first in the queue when the album comes out – frankly, I could happily listen to it for a whole day without stopping and I still wouldn’t get tired of it. I just love AC/DC’s sound – no other band is so good at bare-interval power-chords and the syncopated progressions that involve them, and only a very few others can create so much majesty using such a simple rock line-up (no synths, no drum machines, nothing other than what the instruments themselves will give). Simple yet effective, it’s the same approach I’ve had to my own works for all my mature years – so perhaps it’s little wonder that I like AC/DC and that elements of their sound are slowly creeping into my compositions and arrangements. Plus the band has more testosterone than an army of bodybuilders, which is just perfect for the Hardness with which they make Rock!

Anyway, apart from drooling over AC/DC, I explored the far end of the National Mall today. For the first time in about four weeks at least, I was faced with a properly massive rainstorm this morning. So after breakfast, at which I continued the Obama arguments I’d been having with the Aussie girl who’d joined us downstairs for the Convention yesterday evening, I grabbed my umbrella and set off. I stopped first in the International Spy Museum (another one of the exceptions that charges for entry), and had great fun examining all the various devices used (mainly by the CIA and KGB) to conceal weapons, bugs and cameras throughout the ages, as well as reading the features on the Cambridge spies (which brought back six-year-old memories of Another Country), McCarthyism and various other double agents. From there, and I was glad to see that during my spy exploit the rain had completely stopped, I headed to the Capitol, where a large knowledgable tour guide took us round the architectural ‘bare bones’ of the old buildings and locations of Congress (including the famous ‘whisper chamber’ effect in the old Senate hall). That seen, I went past the Supreme Court to the Library of Congress (which I remember well from National Treasure 2!), but was disappointed to find that all the interesting parts (i.e. the books) required me to be a member of the Library, so I had to content myself with a few hasty photos while the warders had their backs turned. I was going to look into the Botanical Gardens as well, but wasn’t really in the mood for looking at piles of self-satisfied plants, so headed past the White House (which I won’t be able to visit, since I’m unlikely to be able to “make a booking six months in advance with your local member of Congress”) back to the hostel, briefly venturing out again to stock up on drinks at the nearest 7/11.

My camera is down to 280 photos remaining (already), so I will now upload what I have to my laptop, and from there onto Facebook before long. Then, perhaps, I will be able to finish the blasted Olympics stuff I’ve been trying (and mostly failing) to watch over the last few days before tuning into Obama’s speech to the Convention in a few hours’ time.

]]> http://yarns87.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/trip-to-south-dakota/ Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:14:49 +0000 yarns87 http://yarns87.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/trip-to-south-dakota/

So my goal to keep an active blog hasn’t exactly been met. Anyway, I spent a week in Rapid City, South Dakota visiting family. During my stay in the Black Hills, I took many photos. If you are ever have the chance, I highly recommend you check out South Dakota. It is surprisingly beautiful there. Also, if you are a wild west buff, there are plenty of old towns that host mock gun fights in the streets.

Having already seen Mount Rushmore four or five times before, I wasn’t too excited when my family decided to pay a visit. After all, there is really only one to see at Mount Rushmore. Five minutes passed and I had seen enough. There was a gift shop of course, but every gift shop in South Dakota has the same things: postcards of the main attractions/nation parks, tshirts with wolves on them, leather biker jackets, lame colored rocks that come in those stupid little pouches, shot glasses, knives, and jewelry. If you’ve been to one gift shop, you’ve been to them all. There was also a mini-museum but I’d seen all of it before, besides I can’t imagine much has changed since I’d last visited.

After Mount Rushmore, we went to Sylvan Lake. If you have seen National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets, it is the place from the scene where Nicholas Cage sticks his arm in that one rock and pulls that pretty lame joke on everyone. They make it seem like the lake is directly behind Mount Rushmore in the movie, but in reality it is in an entirely different location. To give you an idea, Mount Rushmore is in Keystone and Sylvan Lake is in Custer State Park.

Sylvan Lake is gorgeous. The drive up was amazing. I say “up” because the lake is located in the top of the Black Hills. I would have posted some pictures of the drive but I was half unconcious do to lack of sleep. When we got there, we busted out the food right away. As we ate, we watched a bride and some wedding guests run around the lake while all the chairs/tents they set up blew over. Sucks for them. After lunch we rode paddle boats around. Paddle boats seem like a good idea, but that is only if the paddle boat is in full operational order. Lets just say that the pedals could have used an oiling (back in 2006) and that my side had a minor hole in it. Even though with each minute I peddled my knees were slowly developing into those of a 75 year old man’s and with each swoop of my feet I kicked water back at myself, I was in awe at the beauty of the nature.

After paddle boats, we took a hike around the lake. It was very pretty. My family got pissed because I kept stopping to take pictures and were even more pissed that these pictures did not include them.

Three/fourths of the way around the lake I found a large rock structure which I climbed. My cousin and I spent 30-45 minutes trying to find a way to get to the top of one rock form. Well, we found one way, but it would involve a large 10 foot leap onto a 45 degree incline. After seeing the 20 foot drop, we voted on an alternative strategy for reaching this rock. After what can only be described as “shimmying” across narrow cliff, we finally reached a climbable wall. We took our time once we got to the top of the rock. Again, this pissed off the rest of the family of whom we told we would be back “in a jiffy.”

This picture below is from the top of the rock my cousin and I climbed.

After Sylvan Lake we went to Spearfish Canyon, one of my favorite places in South Dakota. The drive was the prettiest of the entire trip.

The main attractions in Spearfish include waterfalls and rivers. This one below is Bridal Veil Falls.

It was a good trip. Again, if you haven’t been to South Dakota before, I really suggest you pay a visit. Hope you enjoyed my photos. You can see a few more on my flickr.

South Dakota Flickr Gallery

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Last quarter, Bill Brown gave a lecture on the performance group the Surveillance Camera Players, a “pro-privacy group that protests against surveillance cameras by performing silent specially adapted plays directly in front of them.”

But one thing that Bill Brown and the SCP didn’t address was what if you’re caught with a broken cellphone camera in the middle of a high speed chase running from a dangerous criminal who will stop at nothing to get a hold of the piece of ancient wooden plank containing Incan carving that was stolen from the Resolute desk in Buckingham Palace that will ultimately lead to the legendary Native American lost City of Gold and thereby clearing your great-great grandfather’s name of being involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Then, I think, public surveillance may come in pretty handy:

I guess I’ve been in the mood for some high-paced action-packed historical conspiracies:

Not sure why I like conspiracies but I guess I’m just a sucker for stories about an underground postal service and a secret Presidents’ book that contains all of the truth about all the nation’s conspiracies. I’m also a sucker for horrible Nicolas Cage flicks. Say what you will about National Treasure 2.. but any movie that can make a trip to the Library of Congress look that hardcore has to be pretty sweet.

Thomas Pynchon on The Simpsons:

]]> http://cbearnm.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/national-treasure-2-book-of-secrets/ Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:16:13 +0000 Chuck http://cbearnm.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/national-treasure-2-book-of-secrets/

I Am Legend (2007)

Will Smith is one of those actors that can make a passable movie enjoyable. He is likable and can actually act. This role is one that places such importance on the lead that will break or break a movie. He pulled it off. That being said, I enjoyed this movie more when it was called Omega Man or The Last Man on Earth. It was updated well and was not a bad movie. Smith’s performance holds up to those of Charlton Heston or Vincent Price. But for those that enjoyed it, you should rent the other 2 versions of Richard Matheson’s story.

This incarnation does have some of the creepiness that feels right out of Twilight Zone. The creatures are closer to looking like what one would expect. There are a couple of plot holes, but they are needed to move the story along. Alice Braga is a nice discovery. Not that her role is that big, she is effective. Not a classic, but worth the effort.

National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets (2007)

I enjoyed the movie and tend to like popcorn movies.  This one delivered a good story and decent adventure. The acting was adequate.  It’s about what you expect from a Bruckheimer film nowadays. Cage is good as the modern day Indiana Jones and the formula is about the same.

My only real problem is the contrived plot devices that were used:

• Run red light to get picture – why not used cell phone then (or even when he found the plank).
• Kidnapped the president – could have been explained as it was later, when it happened.
• Made a (not so) big deal about memorizing numbers, could have used cell phone.
• Why email pictures to Dad to take to mom, why not directly to her? 
• Wobbly table physics were hokey and not realistic.  3 people move the same distance from center of gravity, yet balance one guy.
• Riley stashed a brick of gold with one hand, it would have weighed about 30 pounds.

And many more, I’m sure. Again, I enjoyed it, but sometimes those things take me out of the action.

*** Today I am moving out of my D.C. apartment. I sit here schvitzing profusely (TMI?) but I’ve got a review. Loyal readers will note that I’ve got a particular affinity for Nick Cage. I had a “Com-ugh-yay-hah” moment when I first saw the Bangkok Dangerous preview. Some could say my thing for Nick Cage is as crazy as the man himself. I’m one of the few who thought National Treasure 2 was worth seeing (and reviewed it right here on FAD) I suspect my friend Seth knew my obsession and has done an analysis accordingly. Without further ado…

Today I would like to review a film that I have never seen. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I plan to critique a film that I’ve never seen. Is that even possible? Obviously: existence is the strongest form of evidence. The well-known theorist and cerebral film critic Slavoj Zizek claims that he often writes about movies before seeing them—and, in fact, never sees them—since he worries that the movie will fail to fit his critical interpretation, which, of course, is much more important than any single film. Going to the cinema might be necessary for having a good laugh during the Bush presidency, keeping up with the artistic development of a favorite director, or wooing a date, but it is often excessive—and therefore potentially restrictive—to the philosopher. Realistically, the film industry and society at-large already understands and promotes this concept. Promotions, interviews, advertisements, posters, and product tie-ins are all used to pique the public’s interest and to get the audience to form (positive) opinions about a feature months before the film even hits theatres. This perception—even among professional reviewers—is often based as much upon circumstantial factors—interesting celebrity relationships, recent addictions, or the quality and accessibility of press junkets—than actual scenes or aspects of a movie.

Thus, I would like to analyze National Treasure and, what the hell, its sequel too. What do we know about it? Well, it’s a Disney film, which can’t be ignored, not just because of the bubblegumminess that tends to stick in their films, but also because, as a major entertainment conglomerate they have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, the illusions which enable it, and the cultural awareness (or lack their of) which is necessary to receive such ridiculous lies and fantasies as a plausible truth and hyperreality . The basic plot of the film (as I understand it from posters, commercials, and things) is that hidden within notable American landmarks, documents, and historical artifacts one can find clues and codes which, when properly deciphered and deconstructed—through action and wit!— lead to treasure and manifold rewards. This plot is an extremely perceptive and revealing, although, I cannot agree with the specifics. Hollywood’s cliché of treasure—gold and jewels, the girl, the excitement and thrill of the chase or journey, the opulence of the spectacle—rings hollow when compared to the more intangible, yet paradoxically much more satisfying, objectives of knowledge, truth, and understanding. It is possible to search for these treasures with the same tools and objects used in National Treasure, but the result is much more subversive and troubling. Consider the major monuments and memorials of our country: Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln memorial, the Washington monument, the Jefferson memorial, the Statue of Liberty. Of these, only one represents a woman. She is fictional, allegorical, and has no real place in American history besides showing up in the occasional metaphorical image. The others—the real people, the authorities, leaders, and icons—are all old, white men. They are homogeneous, or nearly so, in terms of religion, ethnicity, class, gender identification and—despite partisan differences—their political beliefs. Yet we know that America is not, and has never been, comparably uniform or placid. These “treasures” allow a tragic, realization: to date, the country has never been a true democracy. Our hallowed documents demonstrate similar realities, both in how they were written and how they are now interpreted. The Declaration of Independence famously states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The current gloss—a bowdlerization really—is that “all men” means all humans. Historically, that is simply not a feasible interpretation. Only rich property owners had the most valuable rights, like voting. These were, of course, the people who wrote, signed, and gave credence to the document. Women—all alienated—had virtually none of the “unalienable Rights” that men did. African-Americans were slaves, and had absolutely no rights. When the Constitution apportioned representatives—a quintessentially democratic act—Indians were excluded and “all other [non-free] persons” were counted as 3/5 a person. Slaves have four limbs and a head, they had five senses—so what are the 2/5 that were missing? Rational thought and a soul? The repetitive nature of American history is proof not only that these themes and tendencies are endemic but also that they have never been exorcised or overcome. They have never been found. The drive for independence turns into the Monroe doctrine which grows into Manifest Destiny which evolves into Imperialism that then reappears as globalization, which is still with us. It is perhaps only the great magnitude and mythical quality of the Civil War which is able to obscure and trivialize the relatively less violent events of social upheaval—civil rights movements, the great awakenings, the sexual revolution, witch hunts of all kinds, urbanization.

I think we can safely assume that all this is absent from Disney’s films—but it must be conspicuously concealed. If the fantasy, the unreal, the Hollywood reading of such monuments and documents is that they might lead to tangible riches, the real reading could not be. It might then be expected—even if just unconsciously—that the opposite, non-theatrical reading would reveal an abstract poverty. Similarly, the film’s methodology of examining these national treasures closely is all that is necessarily. Instead of examining every forth capitalized letter when read backwards translated in Latin—or some similarly bizarre, conspiratorial pattern—one merely has to look at the actual relics, in their original state, with fresh, discerning eyes. In this sense, National Treasure and all films like it are portals as much as they are obstacles, so long as they are understood as both. The fantasy, the Hollywood analysis becomes a fundamental, internal part of reality both because of the pervasive influence of the illusion and the degree to which it is a path back to reality (to the extent that it exists) through opposition and a hope disentanglement. As central forces in the current cultural structure, such films are an important part of the code that must be decoded in order to lead to the treasure, even when they masquerade as the treasure themselves.

Footnote!: Indeed, Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard both see Disneyland as a prime example of hyperreality. Baudrillard’s idea being that the fantasy of Dinseyland is what allows everything outside of Disney to be seen as a legitimate reality. Without an unreal, surreal place like Disneyworld, there could be no real world. Eco sees Disney as creating a fake reality which allows consumers to compartmentalize, tame, project, and then “experience” a greater reality than exists in nature, and one which is more socially acceptable than unregulated, non-commercialized fantasies.

- S. W. Esquire (soon to be anyway)

Ok so I am a glutton for punsihment. But I thought to myself how far wrong can you go when Harvey Kietel, Helen Mirren and John Voigt are in a movie? World class actors they wouldn’t sell their actings souls for a few extra dollars – they are bigger than that. Then I remembered the magic ingredient to make any movie feel overacted and poorly scripted – Nicolas Cage. I can’t remember a Nicolas Cage movie I actually liked – Snake Eyes had a great trailer, Leaving Las Vegas was self indulgent, Con Air, The Rock, Next… all pretty formulaic hollywood blockbusters.

So the problem with this is that they solve the riddle too quickly, making jumps of deduction that no mortal could possibly make. The stunts aren’t exciting enough and there are no real plot twists. So it is a pretty dull affair. Avoid if possible.

Oh, good God.

Talk about formulaic.

Seriously, the acts are virtually the same, just with different little puzzles and similar parts. It’s like watching the first movie, but not. I certainly don’t mean that in a good way, quite frankly.

I can imagine the meeting of the minds on this one:

Jerry Bruckheimer: Okay, guys – what did we not cover in the last National Treasure movie?

Nicolas Cage: Ooh, the Civil War!

Crazy Jon Voight: That’s right! We didn’t talk about the Civil War at all!

Jerry Bruckheimer: Hmm, I like where this is going. Throw some buzzwords at me. Give me some ideas, gentlemen.

Nicolas Cage: Abraham Lincoln!

Crazy Jon Voight: John Wilkes Boothe!

Nicolas Cage: Mount Rushmore!

Crazy Jon Voight: Queen VICTORIA!

Nicolas Cage: PARIS!

Jerry Bruckheimer: I like all this, I like it. I think it’s going to be hot, gentlemen. Let’s just work all this into a script and see what we get.

Someone needs to have an intervention with Nic Cage. And by “intervention”, I mean, “stop him for his own good”, because heavens to Betsy, my instinctual reaction to someone’s face should not be to cower under the chair in terror and scream “Dear GOD, what is that THING?!” When I first saw Cage, my first reaction was some pseudo pearl-clutching followed by “…What’s wrong with his hair? No, really…what’s wrong with his hair?” He looks disgusting. I don’t just mean in the stinky, looks like he could use a shower or ten kind of department, although that’s part of it. He looks like he’s about to be slapped on an embalmer’s table somewhere after his liver’s exploded during a rough weekend in Vegas.

So, Ben Gates is back – and this time, he and Riley are in all sorts of trouble. Riley owes a ton of back taxes to the government after a shady accountant does him wrong; Ben has lost Abigail after a rocky relationship. Then a odd character comes forth, stating that he has the missing page of John Wilkes Boothe’s diary, implicating a family member of Ben’s in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Of course, Ben and his father are determined to clear their family member’s name, but the shady character (Ed Harris) is using Ben to help him find a treasure. (Are you shocked yet? No? Really?!)

The problem is that National Treasure 2 is the exact same movie as the first. Literally you can pretty much track the second from the first, right down to the discoveries timed simultaneously, Riley offering up pertinent information at exactly the right time, hidden compartments, etc. It feels like an odd sense of déjà vu watching this one, because it feels like it’s the same movie, but it’s not.

You kind of have to mentally shake yourself a bit to remember that you didn’t accidentally take too much NyQuil or something when you weren’t looking.

Jon Voight is so remarkably atrocious in this. He’s playing the doddering old fool, but he’s Jon Voight, so he’s a little crazy to begin with. And add in the fact that it looks like someone gave him a strong sedative before sending him to film his parts and you have a slightly stunted, completely slow looking performance.

What in the hell was Helen Mirren doing in this movie? And could Ed Harris have phoned it in even more? Both of them look like they’re slightly dazed all the way through it, as if they’re trying to mentally communicate, “Bruckheimer hypnotized me and forced me to be in this movie; send help. For the love of God, send help”. Ed Harris isn’t very convincing as a bad guy, mainly because he doesn’t do that much bad stuff, and I think it’s practically a contract stipulation with Harris that if you write him in as a villain, he must have a “conscience” or whatever that thing’s called that gives you a moral compass – or at least a damn good reason for doing whatever the character’s doing.

Even at the end, the discovery of the “treasure” is so cheap – because you know from the start exactly how it’s going to happen because you watched the first movie already (probably). The first movie was a fun cheese-tastic kind of thrill ride, and this one falls flat, mainly because you already know what twists and turns are coming for you right around the bend.

There’s no rhyme or reason to this post. It’s just a mish-mash of happenings.
Yesterday, I rented and watched “National Treasure 2″. Since many people had panned it, I had been hesitant to get it as a new release.
I was pleasantly surprised. I actually enjoyed the movie, though some of the plot points went over my head. I had a tough time seeing how the end of the movie proved Thomas Gates wasn’t one of the conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln. Other than that, I enjoyed the way the characters interacted. I fell in love with Riley again and wish they’d give him a love interest that’s more than just “hot”. But it’s not like these movies go very deep.
On the flip side, I rented the movie “Untraceable”. Talk about disturbing. I was on the edge of my seat through most of it. My heart broke for Jennifer Marsh, the cyber FBI agent assigned to a graphic and frightening case. I loved it, but it really made an impression. The ending is awesome and tense and the motive behind the killings is brilliantly portrayed. All and all, worth renting BUT it’s no light little movie for pleasant entertainment.
We’ve got a birthday party to go to today and I’ve gotten half-way through “Regaining Command” my third book in the series. I hardly ever get to rent and watch movies so it’s been a nice weekend.
The weather has been very weird. It’s been raining off and on, then yesterday was beautifully sunny, this morning it’s a little overcast and windy.
I have no idea what today will hold. Probably more randomness. It all feels a little disconnected today. But maybe I just need more coffee.
How is it with you? Random? Orderly? Insane?

National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets (Widescreen)

Less engrossing than its 2004 predecessor National Treasure, Jon Turteltaub’s busy sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets is nevertheless a colorful and witty adventure, another race against overwhelming odds for the answer to a historical riddle. Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), the treasure hunter who feverishly sought, in the first film, the whereabouts of a war chest hidden by America’s forefathers, is now charged with protecting family honor. When a rival (Ed Harris) offers alleged proof that Gates’ ancestor, Thomas Gates, was not a Civil War-era hero but a participant in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Ben and his father (Jon Voight) and crew (Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger) hopscotch through Paris, London, Washington DC, and South Dakota to gather evidence refuting the claim. The film is most fun when the hunt, as in National Treasure, squeezes Ben into such impossible situations as examining twin desks in the queen’s chambers in Buckingham Palace and the White House’s Oval Office, or kidnapping an American president (Bruce Greenwood) for a few minutes of frank talk. Helen Mirren, the previous year’s Oscar winner for Best Actress, wisely joins the cast of a likely hit film as Ben’s archaeologist mother, long-estranged from Voight’s character but as feisty as the rest of the family. Returning director Turteltaub takes excellent advantage of his colorful backdrops in European capitals and the always-eerie Mount Rushmore, and oversees some wildly imaginative sets for this dramedy’s feverish third act in an audacious and completely unexpected, legendary setting. If National Treasure: Book of Secrets doesn’t feel quite as crisp and unique as its predecessor, it is still ingenious and wry enough to laugh a bit at itself. –Tom Keogh

National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets (Widescreen)

Five days after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and another man, both members of the Knights of the Golden Circle, enter a tavern and approach Thomas Gates (Ben Gates’ great, great grandfather). They produce a diary containing an encrypted message, and entice Thomas, a well-known puzzle solver, to decode it. Thomas recognizes the message as using the Playfair cipher and begins to translate it. While he does so, Booth leaves for Ford’s Theater to assassinate President Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, a clue to a treasure map, and realizes the men are still loyal to the Confederate cause and have a sinister motive for finding the treasure. Unfortunately, he realizes this too late. The Confederate man pulls a gun on him, threatening to shoot him if he does not hand over the diary, however he is distracted from Thomas when chaos erupts in the bar over news of Lincoln’s assassination. Thomas rips several pages from the diary and throws them in the fireplace. The gunman shoots him and attempts to retrieve the pages, only succeeding in saving a small piece. The dying Thomas gasps, “The war is over,” but the man disagrees, stating, “You’re wrong about that, the war has only just begun,” and rushes from the bar. With his final breath, Thomas tells his young son, Charles Gates, “The debt that all men pay.”

Over 100 years later, Ben Gates is telling his great-great grandfather’s story at a conference on Civilian Heroes to great acclaim until black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson shows one of the eighteen missing pages of John Wilkes Booth’s diary, with Thomas Gates’ name on it, convincing everyone that Thomas was the mastermind behind the Lincoln assassination. Ben sets out to prove the innocence of his great-great grandfather.

Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers a cipher pointing to Édouard Laboulaye hidden on the back of the diary page. He travels to Paris, where he finds a cryptic clue engraved on the torch of the scale model of the Statue of Liberty on the Île des Cygnes in Paris, referring to the two Resolute desks. Ben heads to Buckingham Palace, seeking out the closer of the two desks. With the help of his friend Riley Poole and estranged girlfriend, Abigail Chase, he is able to sneak into the Queen’s office to find an ancient wooden plank hidden in the desk. He is then pursued by Wilkinson, who, having broken into his father Patrick Gates’ house, has cloned Patrick’s cell phone in order to track Ben’s whereabouts. Wilkinson eventually obtains the piece, but not before Ben manages to photograph the symbols carved into the plank.

At Ben’s insistence, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife, Emily, for help in translating the mysterious glyphs. She does so, but points out that some of the glyphs are partial, leading Ben to conclude another plank must be hidden in the other Resolute desk, which is located in the Oval Office. With the unknowing help of Abigail’s new love interest, who works for the White House, Ben and Abigail coax their way into the office to see the desk, where Ben discovers that the second plank is missing. However, he does find a stamp bearing the seal of the Book of Secrets. According to Riley, the Book of Secrets contains documents collected by Presidents for Presidents’ eyes only, covering such controversial subjects as the JFK assassination, Watergate, and Area 51.

To find the location of the book, Ben causes the President’s birthday party to be held at Mount Vernon by booking all other approved locations. When Ben sneaks into the party, he convinces the President to follow him into a secret tunnel under the House where he confronts him about the book; the President sympathetically warns Ben that his actions will be interpreted as an attempt to kidnap the President, confirming a conclusion Ben and his companions have already reached; Ben is now wanted for committing a federal offense. Appealing to the President’s well-known love for history, Ben convinces the President to reveal the location of the book (which turns out to be in the Library of Congress). The President also tells him to read page 47 as well as the information he needs. In the book, Ben finds a picture of the plank from the desk and a note saying that President Coolidge found it in 1924, had it destroyed, and had the Mount Rushmore monument built to hide the treasure.

At Mount Rushmore, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick meet Mitch, who has kidnapped Ben’s mother. Mitch provides a clue to the entrance of a cave containing the legendary native American city of gold, Cíbola. Despite several traps they manage to find the city, but rising flood waters force them to leave. In the last room before the exit, a mechanism requires one person to stay behind while the others could leave. Mitch forces everyone to let him go first, but rising water forces him to be the last person left. Ben tries to help him out, but Mitch cannot come to Ben without the door closing. Mitch decides to sacrifice himself and allow the others to escape the flooding cavern, and Ben agrees to give him credit for finding the treasure. Ben clears his family’s name with the discovery and is cleared of all charges when the President tells everyone that Ben saved his life after the door to the tunnel closed accidentally. Ben also ensures Mitch receives joint credit for the find. The President then asks Ben about what he read on page 47 of the Book of Secrets, to which Ben replies: “It’s life-altering”.