Eyes on Spies

So, I’ve got spies on the mind. Firstly, it’s because I just got through Covert Affairs. It’s about a newbie CIA officer played by Piper Perabo. I got into it mainly because I was charmed by her guest starring on Go On (a tragically cancelled sitcom) and because it’s on USA, and I’ll watch just about anything from them (seriously. Covert Affairs is the 5^th show from them I watch regularly. It’s a good thing it’s cable, because trying to keep up with 24 episodes for all those shows would take up waaaaay too much of my time).

Secondly, it’s because Burn Notice (another USA show) is back on the air. Burn Notice is about an ex-spy, and takes great pleasure in pointing out how spies actually do things, as opposed to how they’re portrayed to do things in movies (Covert Affairs tends to go the movie way, not the realistic way).

Thirdly, it’s because I finally caught up with the Edward Snowden story this morning. Or at least, what I think is the Edward Snowden story. From what I can tell, Snowden used to work at the CIA and then leaked information to some newspapers last week that the CIA has been monitoring the internet and cell phone calls. Now he’s in Hong Kong.

Firstly, about the phone call monitoring – HOW IS THIS NEWS?!? I mean, not to go all conspiracy theorist on you, but the NSA has been doing this for years. They monitor calls, and certain key words trigger closer scrutiny. Any useful information would be shared with the FBI (for domestic matters) and the CIA (for international matters), and if they’re feeling really nice, they might even share it with other countries (for a quid pro quo, of course, because that’s how the intelligence community works).

About Snowden himself? Guy’s a douche. He promised not to reveal secrets, and then he did. He gave his word and then broke it. I don’t mind that he had a moral dilemma about it. That’s fine. That’s what your conscience is for. But you can’t share information you got there. That’s against the law, and depending on the nature of the information revealed, possibly treason.

On the other hand, I have no problem with the newspapers printing what he told them. They got the information fair and square, and broke no laws getting it. They’re not beholden to the government, so there’s nothing preventing them from revealing any secrets at all. It’s kind of their job.

Now, Snowden is in Hong Kong. After his identity was revealed (he actually outed himself), he checked out of his hotel, not to be seen since. He told the newspapers he was leaking information because he was worried about the rights of American citizens. Then he WENT TO CHINA, a land renowned for the rights of their citizens (“On this day in Tiananmen Square, nothing happened”) and their unwavering devotion to justice and law (*cough* copyrights *cough*). And of course, they would have absolutely no interest in the American Intelligence community. None at all.

If you’ll allow me one more bit of tin-foil-hatness, Snowden is either being made very rich, or very hurt.

Zombie Column: After Earth

What's this? A zombie column three weeks in a row? Am I getting back into movies? (no). Have I lost my mind? (yes). What's going on? What's going on is this is a coincidence. I got a sudden invitation to StarTrek a few weeks ago, which was awesome (about 87% as awesome as FF6). Last week as Fast and Furious 6, which we'd planned on seeing for quite a while. Then this past week my brother's family was in town for some regional church stuff, so my brothers and I took the chance to go to see a movie together. It's probably the first time all three of us have gone to see a movie in years. ThePhantom Menace may have been that movie. Ian and I share similar tastes in movies, but Duncan actually has movie-going standards (one of his favourites is 12 Angry Men), so it's not often that I can go to a movie with him and have us both enjoy the experience.

Anyway, we went to see After Earth. The big question Ian and I had going into it was if the power of Awesome (Will Smith) could overcome the power of Suck (the director was M. Night. Shyamalan). We tied the trailer game (Duncan sat out, because he pays attention to more important things than pop-culture. He's like, responsible and all). I got Thor, Ian got Percy Jackson, I got White House Down (I'm all in on that), and Ian got Grown-ups 2 about half a second before me. We laughed at the trailer, but Duncan astutely said "And now you've seen all the jokes in the movie."

After Earth opens with narration by Jaden Smith, telling the history of Earth. We left it, seeking a less polluted/warring planet, and landed somewhere else. Aliens came to kick us out by bio-engineering hunters that smelled the pheromones we exuded when we're afraid. A small cadre of warriors learned not to fear, and they fought back. The rest of us tried not to giggle at what a preposterous development that is.

I mean, come on. An alien race that can bio-engineer animals can't tailor a virus to kill us all? They smell our fear, but not our sweat or other excretions? Why can't they bio-engineer eyes (alright, eyes are hard). Ears, maybe? This just seems dumb. Also, why are aliens always so technologically limited? If they developed only 1% faster than us, they'd already be 140 million years more advanced than us (with a 14 billion year old universe). 5 million years ago, we barely had anything that remotely resembled a human. 200 years ago, we barely had electricity. In 140 million years, we could be pure energy. And yes, pop culture insists on aliens that can be fought with our weapons, that are within at most a few thousand years of us technologically. It's fairly limiting. And stupid.

Anyway, in an effort to get to know his son, Will Smith takes him intergalactically camping, only their ship malfunctions and they crash land on Earth. "Everything has evolved to kill us" he says, which I think is wrong. Firstly, not everything on Earth evolved to kill humans. Secondly, it's only been a few thousand years - how much could a species evolve in that time? Thirdly, humans have been gone for most of that time - how could animals evolve to kill missing prey?

Still, it's a survival story, and Jaden Smith does a good job of portraying waaaayyy in over his head. Will has a broken leg, so he's stuck in one place. Jaden has to trek to a broken part of their ship to retrieve and set off an intergalactic flare. Also, they brought along one of those animals that smells fear (it was supposed to be a military exercise), but it escaped in the crash, so they'll have to deal with that at some point.

That's pretty much the movie. It's not a great movie, but it's the not the pile of crap I expected. Ian thought the power of awesome outweighed the power of suck. Duncan thought the opposite. I thought it was a wash. The music was decent, there were a few jokes, but there wasn't a whole lot of action, there were scenes in there whose only purpose was to be called back to near the end of the movie, and the actors couldn't stick to their accent. I think it was supposed to be southern, but they kept on forgetting - "Oh yeah, my character has an accent" and so some scenes had it, and some didn't. Still, very good special effects (say what you want, but Shyamalan can do effects) and quite good scenery. But it's not enough to redeem this movie. Worth a look at some point, but it's only DVD quality at most. Probably free-on-TV, according to my rating system.

Zombie Column: Fast and Furious 6

We’ve planned to go to see this movie ever since Steve got overly excited upon seeing the trailer. Now, I hate to throw Steve under the bus, but he was as giddy as a schoolboy on a snow day (and not any other analogy, understand?). Rich couldn’t make it because he ran a marathon that started at 7 the next day and needed sleep, so we took Clement with us.

Trailers for the week were The Lone Ranger, which is growing on me. Even if they put all the action bits in the trailer, it would be impossible not to have impressive set pieces all around those bits of action. People are thinking it will bomb (and it might) but I’m betting I’ll enjoy it. Mind you, I also enjoy plenty of crap movies, so it might be best for the rest of you to reserve judgement. Other trailers were for White House Down (I’m all in on this), R.I.P.D. (Jeff Bridges has waaaay too much fun, and that might hurt it a bit), and Rush (a character piece masquerading as a racing/action flick).

As for the movie itself … it’s all kinds of ridiculous, and everyone one of those kinds is AWESOME! This movie has all the awesome. All. Of. It. From now on, every movie described as awesome will be compared to this movie. “It was a good movie. 86% as awesome as Fast and Furious 6.” Or “That was great! 105% as awesome as Fast and Furious 6” (although don’t believe for a minute there is anything more awesome than FF6).

Particularly the last 10 seconds. Right at the end of the movie, there’s a warning that all the stunts were done by trained drivers, and please don’t recreate them at home (not that that’ll stop people from doing it for Youtube purposes, but at least they can’t sue the Fast and Furious franchise for their own stupidity), and then there’s a scene that sets up the villain for the next movie. And frankly, I have not been this excited about any movie related business in about … well, in about three months, actually, since that was when they announced J.J. Abrams would be doing the next Star Wars. Do you know how lucky we are as movie fans? Tremendously lucky. Also, awesome.

Now, I could talk about how the past movie and this one were about reuniting everyone who had been in a FF movie and introducing new ones (Hi, The Rock), but to do that, they need to kill off some characters or they’ll have too many to focus on. Nominally, the movies are about Dom (Vin Deisel) and Brian (Paul Walker), with the others around them. Actually, I should have said the movies are about cars, because they totally are. Then they are about Dom and Brian, and then about the banter between the minor characters (let it be noted that Tyrese Gibson is willing to have shots taken at him in the dialogue. He’s a stand up guy) while Dom and Brian talk about meaningful stuff. Then it’s back to cars. But mostly, this movie is about the awesome. It’s an awesome theatre movie.

Xbox One

I wanted to jot down a couple quick thoughts about the Xbox One reveal and press conference today, because apparently that’s what this blog has descended into. Ha, just kidding. I’ll be melting my brain with Fast & Furious 6 this weekend, unless something unexpected happens.

First, I think I know why it’s called the Xbox One, even though it’s the third generation of Microsoft’s gaming system. It’s not called the Durango (isn’t that an SUV?), the Infinity (that would've been cool) or the 720 (I know that it’s 360 x 2, but that’s just two circles. Wheee). I think it’s called the One because it’s a homonym with Won. “You buying a Playstation or an Xbox?” “Well, the Xbox won, so an Xbox one.”

Now, let’s get into the specs, and find out why I probably won’t buy one (hint: it rhymes with “Shmomputer.”) It has an eight-core CPU (twice as much as my computer), 8 gigs of RAM (as much as my computer, but I have 4 slots with 4 gigs of RAM sticks each. I don’t know why it only registers as 8 gigs. Any technowizards out there that can help? Also, that doesn’t count the 2 gigs of DDR5 I have for my graphics card), and a 500 gB harddrive (waaaay less than my computer). Finally, it’ll have a blu-ray drive. How much did that stick in their craw to have to license Sony technology? Oh yeah, and my computer has one too.

Of course, what Microsoft is trying to do is turn the Xbox into a multimedia machine. Which my computer can do as well. They’ve touted the ability to get TV, which anyone can get on their computer for a $100 video capture card. Hell, I bought an external doohickey that plugs into my USB port (USB 3, just like the Xbox One) and has a cable connection on the other side. It cost $60, and now I get TV. With some software, anyone can have DVR capabilities (I have Windows Media Centre from a previous computer). Also, they bragged about instantly switching between TV, game, and the internet. We’ve had that on computers ever since ALT+TAB came about. Seriously, anyone that’s had a boss is intimately familiar with that.

Mind you, they’re big on voice and action commands too, which is something my computer cannot do (yet). It’s why I have a mouse, which is much more accurate than most gestures. The voice thing is cool though.

While games played less of an emphasis in the announcement, they did state they had 15 games coming within a year, eight of them being original franchises. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Steam. Cheap games, good games, almost any games you want. World of Warcraft? Not on steam, but downloadable. Blizzard has an online store. Gamefly for more games. GOG for old games. Origin for EA games, because they saw Steam and said “We can do that worse.”

So yeah, anything you can do, my computer can do better. Well, I guess they do have Halo going for them.

Zombie Column: Star Trek: Into Darkness

It seems my movie-going habits have changed from well-scheduled summer months to sudden invites an hour ahead of time. Not that I mind, because a sudden invite to see Star Trek: Into Darkness is just the thing to perk my week up. It’s like a sudden invite out to a great restaurant when you were just planning on microwaving something at home. And the cook at that great restaurant was J.J. Abrams. Who in this analogy is a fantastic cook (okay, maybe my analogies need a little work).

So yes, I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness last night, and it was awesome. In fact, it was so awesome I can’t even remember the trailers beforehand, because they were all overshadowed by the awesomeness thereafter. I can remember World War Z, which has great trailer music that I can’t seem to find anywhere. I think I recognize one part of it by Audiomachine, but I could be wrong, and then they use other songs that are just as awesome and just as unknown. Also, I pay way too much attention to music in trailers. Besides that, they showed the scene where people fly out of a hole in a plane. PLANE HOLES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. Especially at that altitude. This is one thing that movies consistently get wrong. Give plane makers a little credit here, people. Anyway, I suppose I should actually get started before I get completely sidetracked.

The movie itself opens (after some title screens) with Kirk and McCoy running through that red forest that you’ve seen in the trailer. And yes, it’s just as funny as the trailers, so that’s good. What’s not good is why Kirk’s doing that in the first place (SIDETRACK ALERT). Why would the captain of a ship go on an away mission? I know that it’s a time-honoured Star Trek tradition, but my gosh – it makes no sense. You don’t risk the most important people on trivial matters. In fact, you do your best not to risk them at all. Not that that’s a bad idea. Can you imagine how few wars there would be if heads of state had to go to the front lines every time they declared war? They’d learn how to settle things over a beer and a game of Mortal Kombat.

In Star Wars (and just for the record, I’m not a fan of comparing Trek and Wars), you don’t see General Dodonna up there piloting an X-wing against the Death Star – he lets the pilots do that. Not that it would have mattered. The Death Star was seconds away from obliterating the whole planet anyway. Later, they let a general lead a mission, but it was Han Solo, and I’m guessing it was a placating gesture before he went and killed himself on a suicide mission to take down the Death Star II’s shields from the forest moon of Endor. Lando was given a general-ship, but I think that was based on piloting merit, or the need to have him be the one to give orders to the rest of the star fighters. The one in actual command was Admiral Ackbar, sitting safely in the Home One (flagship of that particular alliance fleet), only the fully operational Death Star laser forced him to engage the enemy directly. So yeah, Star Wars does this better.

So … back to the movie. Kirk gets in trouble, because he’s Kirk. Before he can really be punished at all (because again, he’s Kirk), Benedict Cumberbatch shows up to be evil. Has there ever been a more perfectly British name than Benedict Cumberbatch? Quick, someone give him a title so he can be Lord Benedict Cumberbatch. He needs to name his kid Thornwood just to keep the theme going. Anyway, he shows up to be evil, and then the movie adds some twists, with callbacks to previous movies and TV shows, only with a little twist. Like having a different character in the callback. In the new version, Spock and Uhura are dating, but it was Kirk and Uhura in the original who kissed (TANGENT ALERT!). In fact, theirs was the first interracial kiss aired on TV. They did one take where the kiss was spectacular, but the producers were nervous about showing it, so they asked for more takes. William Shatner kept intentionally messing up so they’d have to use the good take, because William Shatner is cool that way, and totally aware that hotness knows no racial boundaries. Now it’s just taken for granted that someone as smokin’ as Zoe Saldana can get whoever she wants, be it white, black, purple, green, or alien.

So … back to the movie … again. It was awesome (as if you couldn’t have gotten that from the first paragraph, or the trailer, or the fact that it’s Star Trek and directed by J. J. Abrams), so it’s definitely a theatre movie. Good action, good lines, good comedy, good acting, good music. And to think, this is the guy who only likes Star Trek. Imagine what he’ll do with Star Wars.

Zombie Column: Olympus has Fallen

This past Saturday, I got a sudden invite to see Olympus has Fallen, and I'm not one to turn that kind of thing down. Not when such a cinematic masterpiece is being offered (alright, enough sarcasm). I went with some of the same people as last week (GI Joe), and it had enough of the same audience that I thought we were going to get the same trailers. Nope. I can't really remember which ones they are, except that The Internship was one of them, and that they were pretty much all movies that I would pass on.

In case you didn't know, Olympus Has Fallen is one of two movies released this spring in which the White House is taken over. The second one is called White House Down (so Olympus definitely won the battle of the names) and comes out in June. That one was Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, while this one has Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler. I'm not quite sure who I'd give the casting nod to, but I'm going with Olympus, since even thought Channing is red hot right now, Olympus has Morgan Freeman and can afford to have Ashley Judd cameo after her TV version of Taken set in the Amazon didn't pan out.

Anyway, this movie opens sometime right before Christmas (possibly Eve) up at Camp David, as the first family is getting ready to go to a fundraiser or event of some sort. It's quite snowy outside, and the motorcade spins out on a bridge (because of course it does). Mike Banning (Butler, and let me say what a great action name Mike Banning is. I'm pretty sure it's the best hero name ever. I mean, we're all attached to John McClane, but that might just be because Die Hard was so good it coloured our perceptions. If Die Hard had had a detective Banning, Hans Gruber would've given up on the spot. There's just no fighting a guy like that) pulls the president to safety just as the limo plunges into the icy waters below, carrying the First Lady with it (good-bye, Ashley Judd. Thanks for coming out. Now you have more time to cheer on Kentucky. Or Kansas. Or whichever College Basketball team you're wildly overrated to cheer for).

18 months later, Banning has been reassigned to the treasury building (fun fact: The Secret Service is under control of the treasury. I don't know why, that's just the way it is. That means that threats to the president get even more jurisdictional, since you now have the treasury involved, the justice department involved, Homeland security, possibly the military, and whoever the CIA and NSA answer to. The state department, maybe? I don't actually know that one) where the desk job is slowly driving him insane. Let me tell you, Banning, I have a desk job and it's actually pretty awesome. But I'm not used to throwing my body in front of bullets, so I gather that cubicles might be kind of boring for you.

There's a South Korean delegation that's meeting with the president to discuss the rising threat of North Korea (wow, the standard of movie villains has really fallen off. First we had Nazis, who were legitimately terrifying, since they were winning World War Two and one point. They gave way to the Russians, who were smart and resourceful, not to mention big, but had also had a lot of shoddy business practices. And they gave way to North Korea, whose people are starving and only credible threat is a nuclear weapon or two. We could glass the entire country several times over. You know, if we didn't care about the civilian population or anything. So that's why we don't do that. Anyway, if NK isn't the main enemy, it's terrorists, who can be counted on to strike anywhere, but can't really maintain a sizeable standing army).

During the meeting a plane enters the no-fly zone around the white house and shoots down the jets sent to intercept it. Then it starts randomly shooting people on the ground before it's shot down as well. The president and the SK delegation have been hustled to the Presidential Security Bunker, where it turns out the SK delegation was made up mostly of terrorists, who kill everyone they want to and take the president and some high-ranking cabinet members hostage, thus forcing the military to back off instead of retaking the White House, which has been taken over by those same terrorists posing as tourists with a rather cool strategy, actually. Mind you, there's a lot you can accomplish when all your followers are ready to die. The secret service puts up a valiant fight, but they get overwhelmed (fun fact: the Secret Service employs less than 1000 people, most of whom are deployed elsewhere, or at home in their off time. It's not like you can have all your employees working around the clock, every day). Banning hears the devastation from the plane and then sees the invasion going down. He fights through it from the rear, eventually making it into the White House, where he runs and guns with the terrorists for the rest of the movie.

I liked this movie. Not as much as I could have, maybe, but enough. It's not a great movie by any means, nor a fantastic example of what a mindless movie can be (last week's was much better). But it's competent, and has a lot of action, and even some humor. Yes, there's a scene specifically inserted so that Banning can be proven right and a four star general proven wrong (because nothing makes a hero as heroic as having the opportunity to say "I told you so", especially when people's lives are on the line). So, some problems, including a baffling nuclear decision that I want to rant about, but realize that this post is long enough as it is, without getting into the nuclear nonsense of the past two weeks.

Maybe that'll come next week. All in all, I think it's a blu-Ray movie. Almost a theatre quality movie, but I think they just left something on the table, even if I can't point my finger at it. Too many unfired Chekhov's guns, maybe. Still, good movie. Now, let's see about that one in June.

Zombie Column: GI Joe: Retaliation

I saw GI Joe: Retaliation this Good Friday, because nothing says Solemn Religious Occasion like an action-fest. I went with a group of friends, so it was me, Steve, Rich, Jay and Brian. We went to the best theatre in town (probably). It's a little more expensive, but it huge, and loud, and you can reserve seats ahead of time, and we got in for free because I have a SCENE card and it's awesome.

Anyway, previews were for The Fast and the Furious 6 (Aww Yeah!), Star Trek: Into Darkness (Aww Yeah!), Iron Man 3 (which Steve and I tied on, and also Aww Yeah!) and World War Z, which I lost to some guy in the row behind me and a few seats over. Well played, sir. Well played.

The movie had four company screens, but the last one was for Hasbro, which I'm sure brought a lot of smiles to faces in the theatres. They can go on making movies, as far as I'm concerned, and I will happily pay money for whatever blockbusters they put out.

The movie opens in the North Korean DMZ, with our heroes starting a mission to retrieve a prisoner. So they cut the chain link fence, create a diversion and extract the prisoner, who's conveniently jailed a mere 20 meters from the border. I don't think North Korea is inept enough to put anything in the DMZ except for watch towers, let alone prison cells within spitting distance of South Korea, but whatever. Anyway, one of the Joes goes a little independent and raises the Joe flag on the NK flag pole, but no harm came from it, and it was all in good fun and no one got hurt.

Next, we get to see Duke (Channing Tatum) and Roadblock (Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson) bonding, and it's hilarious. I know 21 Jump Street proved Tatum had comedic chops, but it's always nice when he adds in a little extra humour.

From there, the Joes get sent to Pakistan to secure some nuclear weapons, and the plot kicks off. I won't spoil it for you, even though it barely matters, because GI JOE! Whoo! Explosions! Guns! Martial Arts! Fights while rappelling down the side of a mountain! That sequence was actually fairly lengthly, and also awesome. More movies need to do that. Sword fighting while running along the sides of cliffs? Yes please!

Besides that, the rest of the action scenes were pretty good as well. I didn't mind the short cuts and chaotic action as much as I usually do. Maybe I'm willing to cut GI Joe a bit more slack, or maybe I'm just getting used to it, but they were all awesome. Ridiculous, but awesome.

My only quibbles with this movie are small. There are accusations that the movie was delayed so that more Channing Tatum could be written in. Turns out, those accusations are unfounded, so the only reason to delay it for 9 months was to put in the 3D. And while most of the 3D was good, there were some curious camera placements choices. We had an over the shoulder shot of one guy speaking, except the blurry shoulder was still in the shot. Normally this isn't a problem, except it was in 3D, so the blurry shoulder jumped out at us. That's just poor cinematography, and I know my cinematography, having studied it not at all.

Also, the music was merely alright. Some of it was pretty good, and some of it wasn't. All in all, it balanced out to okay, but I want more than okay in my bombastic soundtracks. I want epic themes of heroism and saving the world from global catastrophe.

But those niggling problems aside, this movie is fantastic. Don't get me wrong, you'll need to turn your brain off before you get inside. But once you do, prepare for the awesome! It's a theatre movie for me, and probably the best movie I've seen this year (not that that helps much).