A friend of mine just lent me the Tron 20th anniversary Edition DVD. I’ve got to say it’s pretty damn impressive and I’ve had a great time watching that movie again. It takes me back a long time. Even before I hated Disney (the Mermaid fucking DIES in the original story, you assholes!!!). Anyway, I think most IT people out there can relate. Back in our childhood, there were a bunch of geeky movies that I think inspired us all. They were bad, yes, but we were kids and what could be more amazing and intellectually challenging than a robotic dog, a walnut-shaped relativity-defying spaceship with a lousy sense of humor, or a hacker that could very well destroy the world but saves it by making a computer solve riddles? I mean, those were the times!

…

Boy, did we have bad taste.

…

Tron wasn’t that crappy, though.

…

Tron was cool. Yeah.

— sergio at 01:47 AM  

I edited the comic because of repeated reports that it seemed Ellie was flipping the bird to the guys. I want to make it completely clear that that is not the case. Ellie is a classy girl who wouldn’t resort to such low tactics. Plus, she doesn’t know the guys enough to have reasons to do that yet.

Now that’s cleared, I’d just like to let you all know that I have tickets to the Matrix Premiere!!! Hah!! in your face!!!! Of course, since in México said premiere is on the 22nd instead of tomorrow, the vast majority of you will have seen it before I do. Which sucks. Due to this circumstance, my Matrix blackout shall begin today. I do not want to see the reviews, read the comments or know any more that I have to. It will be difficult, but I’m confident in my ignoring skills. And the first person to email me that Morpheus is actually Neo’s father gets my utmost hatred ‘til the end of time. Bye now.

— sergio at 09:28 PM  

This is Ellie’s debut. That’s short for Eleanor (like Jodie Foster in Contact). Hope you like her. I also took this chance to clear things up a bit about the relationships between the other characters.

There were many great suggestions for the girl’s name. In the end, it was a close call between Emily and Ellie. Elizabeth Arellano suggested this one, as you can see at the top of the comic. I’ll send you some sketches or something cool later liz =). Thanks to everyone who sent me their suggestions, and Amanda: worry not, for she’s bound to eventually change hair style and color.

On to the freaky stuff: People who know me are starting to point out that she’s almost, but not quite, entirely reminiscent of a mixture of some, but not all, of my past girlfriends. This, I assure you, is ludicrous and libelous and.. uhmm.. something really… not true! yeah!. My subconscious is rock solid baby! and nothing leaks out. Ever. It’s like that time I was dreaming I was back in the uterus, and these weird midgets were trying to kill me with a big stick, so I says to my mom… ehmmm… nevermind.

— sergio at 04:01 PM  

Movie Review: Adaptation

All kinds of art establish a relationship between artist and spectator. It is this connection that helps you, the observer, gain some insight into the artist’s mindset and proposition. Sometimes the message is buried under layers and layers of conceptualization. Some other times, the message is blunt and to the point.

Adaptation, the new offering by the same genial duo that gave us Being John Malkovich, is not so much a movie as it is a dialog between the Screenplay writer, Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage, finally putting that sad puppy dog face to good use), and you, the member of the audience.

The movie begins as Charlie is struggling with his laziness and general depressive mindset due to his incapability to produce a decent Script Adaptation of The Orchid Thief, a book about a “quixotic, charismatic schemer” (John Laroche, played brilliantly by Chris Cooper) and apparently charming musings on flowers and the obsession of men with them.

Charlie’s problem, you see, is that he loves the book. He respects the material, likes the characters, the musings and is developing an unhealthy, masturbatory infatuation with the author, Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep, who appears to be under bad lighting through the whole movie, to good effect). With the intent of being true to his source material, Charlie doesn’t want to make a movie that has violence, sex, drugs or car chases. He doesn’t want the lead character to grow or learn a valuable life lesson, he just wants to transmit that broody orchid musings feeling to the viewer. This proves to be quite a difficult task, due to the fact that nothing much actually happens in the book. What he ends up doing is writing a script about himself writing the script, which is what we get to see.

Charlie must also deal with his over enthusiastic twin brother Donald, who seems to be a physical representation of all the things Kaufman loathes about himself. Donald tries his hand at “this writing thing”, goes to a Seminar and ends up writing a laughable, quite sellable script that Charlie’s agent drools all over (it involves a kidnapper, victim and policeman that are actually the same person). Their story, which begins in the Malkovich set, has a great dynamic to it and succeeds in presenting us with the struggle in Kaufman’s head to produce something that will be both entertaining and True (in the broader sense of the word).

The first part of the movie is spent showing the confrontation between Charlie and Donald, as well as the story of how Susan Orlean met Laroche and wrote The Orchid Thief. This is all very entertaining, despite the fact that there’s not much happening. It is depressive and very true to Charlie’s intent for the script. That is, until he gives up to his -evil?- brother and they decide to look for something that Charlie’s script is missing. At this point, and through the villification of all that Kaufman held dear (the flower musings, the Script and the actual author of the book herself) the drugs, violence, sex and car chases begin. The fabled Ghost Orchid Susan frets about and claims to not have seen is actually a source for a drug that seems to act as the Marijuana from hell. Susan is shagging Laroche. Charlie discovers this and she tries to kill him for it. In the chaos that ensues, Donald suffers an accident and, before dying on his brother’s arms, conveys a valuable life lesson (great credit must be given to Jonze’s directing and pacing, because although I wanted to burst out laughing on this dramatic scene, I coudn’t), helping Charlie grow as a person, sell out and finish the script.

This movie was just plain exhilarating. The story jumps all over the place and finally ditches itself and goes out in a blaze of glory. It takes the Malkovich window into the mind premise one step further, making us spectators to the movie writing process through the product of said process. All voices in the movie are Kaufman’s. All the characters are used to advance the plot, which actually appears to be that Kaufman learnt some valuable lessons and decided to finally ground his movie with a dosage of old fashioned, marketable hollywood cliches he hates. This boggles the mind and is funny as hell to watch. Jonze’s directing style suits the script perfectly and special mention must go to the use of the blue screen -Donald and charlie, both played by Cage, are together in the same shot and talking to each other in numerous shots- and the greatly executed car crashes. I was very surprised to find out that The Orchid Thief is a real book, which adds to the overall self-mocking feel of the movie. Definitely a fun watch.

— sergio at 03:44 PM  

I’ve eliminated the spanish version of the site. Since I didn’t have the time to translate everything, it was quite incomplete, and the stats show that it wasn’t getting much use anyway. Sorry for that, but this will enable me to focus more on making updates to the content and adding new stuff without worrying too much about consistency and keeping track of multiple versions. The spanish index page is still up, but it now redirects to the english one. I’d suggest you update your bookmarks if this affects you.

— sergio at 02:04 AM  

Not many news today. I spent the weekend at the movies so I’ll be posting new reviews soon. I also upgraded the update system for the news at the homepage (now handled via Blogger) which will make it easier for me to update that stuff.

The name for the new character is still being considered (see post below) so send me your suggestions. I have received a lot. There are some I particularly like, but I’m not telling.

Also, we’re doing particularly good on the Rocketbox Top 10 (Thanks muchly, everyone, we’re number 7!). If you keep voting we can get a better spot there (it’s a vote a day thing, although it doesn’t let you know, so vote once every day).

— sergio at 12:21 PM  

Just finished massive updating of the site’s html and the new writings section. The movie reviews and rants now have a new format and images to go with them (the ones on the rants are photographs I took). Check them out and let me know what you think.

Tomorrow’s comic is still in fetal form, but I hope it will be up in the afternoon. It sets the stage for a new, female character (at last). If you have any ideas as to how should I name her, let me know. If I end up using your idea, you get brownie points and a mention in the comic.

— sergio at 09:06 PM