Troy. Hmmm. Troy was a long movie. Normally, I enjoy movies that teeter on the edge of 3 hours if only because they make me feel as though I’ve got my money’s worth. Perhaps my mistake with Troy was in going to see a show that started at 10pm. Long before the end of the movie, I was already thinking about my nice, comfortable bed at home.

I’ve never read Homer’s Illiad, nor have I studied ancient Greek history enough to know the true story of Troy. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen a movie about it, either. I guess everything I know about Helen, Troy, and the Trojan Horse, I’ve learned through pop cultural references. Add to that, now, Brad Pitt’s sculpted interpretation of Achilles, I suppose that I’m now as well-informed as 90% of America.

Troy wasn’t a bad movie – in fact, it was actually pretty good. I thought it odd to focus the story of the fall of a city on a single character’s vanity, but I suppose this story has already been told so many ways, the scriptwriter was probably just looking for a new angle. I can respect that, but if you’re going to focus a movie on a single character, I think there’s a strong argument to make the audience sympathetic to that personality. Brad Pitt got top billing, but it was Eric Bana and the others behind the Wall of Troy that I found myself rooting for.

The effects in Troy were impressive. Massive armies clashing, gruesome deathblows, sweeping camera angles of an imagined city… Unlike Van Helsing, I never caught myself thinking, “Oh, that looks SO fake!” But I heard from a friend that the city of Troy had a population of only 3000, the walls were only 6 feet high, and the war lasted ten years. I suppose that if you simply much have an army siege a castle, post Lord of the Rings, you damn well better have an epic amount of carnage. History be damned, Homeric movies sell tickets.

Trivial thought: Notice that there is only one female speaking role for the Greeks vs. countless supporting females for the Trojans – no wonder they don’t come off as sympathetic!
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The (mostly concealed) special effects – the best SFX are the ones you didn’t realize were SFX! Most of the non-Greek characters. Plus the eventual sacking of Troy was surprisingly affecting.
Would I recommend the movie? Yeah, I ‘spose.
Will I buy it on DVD? No.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Troy
Van Helsing

What is there to say about Van Helsing? I can tell you this: Right from the previews, I expected that it wasn’t going to be a good movie. I can’t pinpoint exactly how I knew that, but it sure turned out to be true.

Maybe it was because I knew that it was written and directed by Steven Sommers. He was the guy responsible for The Mummy, the Mummy Returns, and The Scorpion King. I’ll admit that The Mummy was an okay movie… once I realized that it was going for camp, I actually started to enjoy it. I liked The Mummy Returns… not so much. Would you blame me if I told you that I skipped The Scorpion King altogether?

Van Helsing was destined to be the epitome of a special effects laden summer action movie. I went in with low expectations and it was only because of that that I wasn’t completely disgusted. The best thing I can say about the movie is that often the special effects were amazing (if not totally convincing). We’ve come a long way in the 25 years or so since Star Wars. I’m anxious to see where Hollywood will be 25 years from now!

The worse thing I can say about Van Helsing is… hold on. Let me think. There’s a lot to choose from. Okay, I guess it’s that the plot was obviously tacked on as an afterthought. I’ll grudgingly admit that there was a plot there – one that definitely wasn’t difficult to follow. It’s just that the characters were barely given enough time to say a few story-propelling lines before being hurled back into yet another fight with a computer-generated beastie. (For what it’s worth, I might have chosen another aspect of the film as being the worst part of Van Helsing, but for an interview I read with the writer/director. He was so proud of the story he had crafted, cunningly able to bring together three Hollywood monsters of yore! Let me tell you, Mr. Sommers desperately needs to learn the difference between “an idea” and “a story.”)

Trivial Thought: Werewolves are apparently unaffected by the laws of gravity.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? The special effects. Plus Kate Beckinsale and the lead vampiress were very hot!
Would I recommend the movie? Probably not.
Will I buy it on DVD? No.

Summer’s here and it’s blockbuster season at the cineplex again. With a glut of big-budget, low-plot celluloid, an argument can be made that it’s the perfect time to avoid a Hollywood production. Me? I look forward to that magical weekend in April or May when the first mega-hit hopeful kicks off the weekly chain of movies that doesn’t let up until Labor Day.

Movie tickets are worth their weight in RAM nowadays. Once, the day after treating my wife to one of Hollywood’s finest, I made the mistake of opening my wallet. In the distance I heard a coyote howl and a small, lint tumbleweed blew out from between my credit cards. Now that the Juneau monopoly charges $8.75 for a regular showing and something only barely vale la pena for the matinees, you have to be prequalified for a loan before offering your date some popcorn and a soda. It’s quite understandable how many people look to the critics’ reviews before shelling out for a movie these days, but I don’t have to work very hard to justify trips to the theater. There are so many angles from which I can enjoy a movie that I rarely ever leave feeling like I threw my money away. (Cough-Battlefield Earth-Cough)

The Internet needs another amateur movie review site like I need another half-finished project, nonetheless I feel it’s my duty to share my opinion digitally. Figuring out how just how to do that is the hard part. Should I use my thumb or a varying number of symbols representing celestial bodies? Can I get my point across with another symbolic smashed fruit, or do you think I should fall back on the traditional A-through-F grading scale? I know! I could be the first person to come up with an incredibly detailed, 947-point scoring system that uses a matrix of variables such as “believability of visual effects,” “aspect ratio of lens utilized,” “supporting actors’ conviction,” and “applicability of songs licensed for the soundtrack,” to arrive at a precise percentage point designation for each movie. Has that been done already? Sounds like too much work, anyway. Nevermind.

Pre-millenium, I used to write some one-line movie reviews for the Whalesong, the student newspaper at UAS. Despite the lack of fame and fortune associated with my byline, I enjoyed doing it because it was fun and challenging, yet an eminently non-time consuming commitment. If I’m going to try to write a movie review for each movie I scrutinize, that’s the route I want to go. Especially if I can eliminate the “challenging” part.

Some of my friends’ movie opinions have made it painfully obvious that not everyone uses the same criteria to judge a film. That’s reasonable. I can appreciate that not everyone thinks that a movie full of fancy special effects is worth seeing. I don’t want to be responsible for someone spending their children’s college money on a movie they hate, so you’ll understand why I’m not terribly keen on giving recommendations. I think, instead, I’d rather write about what in a movie was worthwhile for me. So, if fashion is your thing and I write something like, “Boy, I sure did like the costume design in Shrek 2!” well, you’d better just whip out that debit card and get your butt to the theater.

I hereby deem that it will also be interesting if I arrange the summer movies in a best-to-worst fashion.

Today is Oksana’s 24th birthday. She called me from Vladivostok last night and the connection was easily the best U.S.-to-Russia connection we’ve ever had – it was like she was right there in the room with me! Though it was her birthday we were able to verbally celebrate, I felt like I was the one receiving a perfect gift.

Happy Birthday, Oksana. I can’t wait to see you next week.

Love,
Arlo

I’m on a plane right now, bound for Seattle (then Orlando, Philadelphia, Norfolk, and Nags Head – should stop moving in just over 24 hours). Considering the week I’ve had, this has been the first chance I’ve been able to even consider writing an update.

In the last couple days, I finally got the opportunity to talk to Oksana. She sounded… tired. I must admit, I expected to hear signs of emotional stress in her voice, but I have a feeling that she’s just too overwhelmed to react anymore. As I wrote earlier, a week ago today she arrived in Irkutsk to the worst possible news. Since then, she and her brother have been working non-stop to make all the necessary arrangements for their mother’s funeral.

Oksana had sent me an e-mail in which she mentioned that she would call as soon as she got back to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski on the 9th. It was a pleasant surprise, therefore, when I received her call a day early – I had forgotten to factor in the whole international dateline thing.

If I have my dates straight, Nadia’s funeral was held on the 10th and Oksana said that it went as well as could be expected. There were about 30 friends and family in attendance and… that’s about the extent of what I know. I never know how to handle conversations about death, even with my own wife, it seems. I didn’t press her for information, and she didn’t talk much about it.

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My grandfather once told me that it doesn’t matter how well you plan things out, there will always be unexpected events to trip you up.

Of course, we were talking about finances, but I think that his lesson applies equally well to life in general.

Oksana and I have been looking forward to going on a vacation together since last December. Finances are really no longer a problem as we can save up vacation money fairly easily, but getting the time off from work is an entirely different matter. I have the university calendar year to plan around, while Oksana has to give consideration to her job at the Mendenhall Auto Center.

Fortunately, we knew far ahead of time what we wanted to do. There was a family reunion (on my father’s side) scheduled for late June in Daytona Beach, and we also wanted to visit my mom parents on the beach in N.C. We asked our respective bosses early and were lucky enough to find two weeks in June that we could both afford to be gone.

Even though we had such advance warning, Oksana and I made a mistake. Instead of booking our tickets as soon as we’d received permission from work, we procrastinated. We thought it would be okay since we still had more than six weeks to go V-day, but we underestimated the number of people who go on vacation in June. The flights weren’t full yet, but we lost our opportunity to purchase a “saver” ticket with our accumulated miles.

Further complicating matters, we needed to take a roundabout flight path. Alaska Airlines (where we have a mileage plan) only flies to a handful of cities on the East Coast, so in order to spend a week in both North Carolina and Florida, we decided to fly round-trip to Orlando and purchase another ticket to Norfolk, VA, on the side. We could have done all that by cashing in 40,000 miles and paying $144 each on airfare.

Instead, we ending up cashing in 73,000 miles, paid $175 to purchase 7,000 extra miles, and spent $250 each on the additional FL-to-VA tickets. Lesson learned.

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Warning: This one is long. I wrote this… wow… about a year ago now. I’ve been meaning to post it on my wedding page, but I still have some writing to do that chronicles what happened before this stuff. I had been waiting (in vain?) to complete that first. I’m posting this on my ‘blog, today, because it has some background information that not every knows about. Unfortunately, it’s background information for some bad news that I need to post tomorrow.

—

Sunday
The day after our wedding, Oksana and I awoke in our opulent room at Pearson’s Pond. The room was expensive, but it was also comfortable a quiet. Lying there in the late morning, enjoying the distinct lack of stress, I decided that it was worth every penny. My only regret was that we were not able to stay there much longer – our checkout time was rapidly approaching.

The day before, Oksana had dropped off an overnight bag in our room. I was glad that I’d married a smart woman – it meant that I wouldn’t have to wear my tuxedo again. In fact, because I was back in casuals, we dropped it off on the way home.

Our arrival back at our apartment was a rather rude awakening. It seemed as though every item from the wedding and the reception was piled in up our living room and kitchen. Flowers, clothes, decorations, leftover cake, and computer gear was everywhere. For some inexplicable reason, there was a pair of men’s dress shows on the kitchen counter.

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