Fashion Victims (2007)

Florian Bartholomäi who plays the gay son is just cute enough to make this gay tilted comedy worth seeing. Apparently, he was in The Reader playing the older brother to the Michael Berg character though I don't remember that clearly. The script has some funny twists and conflict, but nothing really noteworthy. There is a very low key coming out scene. There is a slightly unsympathetic lesbian story line as well. Oh yeah, the movie is in German.

Intelligence and How to Get It by Richard Nisbett

Most interesting are the chapters on Asians and Jews. Nisbett goes out of his way to say that Asians don't have higher IQs than Europeans/European Americans. (Thanks, dude!) But Asians just work harder and the importance of family rather than individual results in increased motivation to success. Nisbett then tries to explain how Jews disproportionately obtain Nobel prizes.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

I had low expectations for this anthology of New Yorker pieces by Gladwell. Well, I mean because usually such a conglomeration of stuff seems not very timely and jumbled. A surprising number of the chapters were quite interesting. And in fact, I felt the same way afterwards as when I normally read a Gladwell book: which is like I'm not sure what I've learned after reading it, except for some random interesting facts. A book of this style is uniquely suited for reading piecemeal.

(500) Days of Summer [2009]

I always liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt from his 3rd Rock days, though I had a thought that he wouldn't look so great grown up. In this film, he's got a mysterious attraction, despite the longish hair, angular face, and impossibly slim physique. I'm going to say something annoying here that girls say so often, but myself almost never: it's the eyes -- I think. Anyway, I really liked this film. The acting is great. I think it's said in other reviews, but it was a bit like falling in love as vicariously as that can be in watching a film. The way it ends is perhaps not a surprise, but the how and why are strangely intense. And the music is excellent.

# # # Major spoilers

After some discussion with friends, apparently the blue theme of the post-coital celebration apparently represents something. Except for in that scene, the female character is the only character in the film to wear blue (I never noticed this). And in a way, that color blue indicates something about the behavior of that character. She is not a typical female. In fact, she acts almost like a male in a female's body which leads to the gay interest tag here. How come I never noticed that she was always wearing blue? First of all, because I'm a male and I don't notice those sorts of things. Second, I'm gay and I never really looked carefully at the girl.

Avatar (2009)

Sam Worthington is my new favorite actor. He looks great in 3-D, too.

Okay now a few words about the movie. The story is quite good, keeps you riveted despite the length (2:42), in a way similar to Titanic but with significantly less love story and more Al Gore story, but in a good way. Versus Titanic, Avatar has even more incredible eye candy.

As everyone says, the 3-D starts a bit gimmicky but soon becomes more subtle and very pleasing. The world is beautiful. I couldn't suppress any of my gasps and murmured 'wow's in several scenes. Avatar is one of the few movies that I would go to see again in the theater. I don't know how or whether the 3D can be done well on DVD, but I kept the glasses just in case.

I did notice that at points the 3-D imaging with some particular camera lenses resulted in strange sizing effects with things looking out of proportion. Some people in the center of the frame looking much bigger than those at the edges. Hopefully this can be fixed in future 3-D films.

Outing Riley (2004)

After the film, I thought Pete Jones, the actor playing the protagonist (as well as writer and director) must be gay, but it turns out he has a wife and kids. I suppose he must have some great gay friends because the film turned out well. I'd read some criticism on imdb of the film that it wasn't gay enough. But actually I thought it was pretty well spot on and rang pretty well true.

Star Trek (2009)

Finally saw it beginning to end on dvd. I'd previously only seen the second half on a plane. How excellent!

The dvd has some enlightening extras including a part in the "making of" about lens flares when in fact during the movie, I noticed that these were nice realistic lighting effects that I had never seen before. It also talks about the camera shaking, mirrors and miniatures. J.J. Abrams is brilliant.

But what was the deal with the 20th century crashbar on the door and the concrete block design of the Delta-Vega outpost manned by Scottie (Simon Pegg)? One might think they would have changed from two century old Earth-based design elements by then?

I also just noticed that Vulcans are the elves of space. They have the same pointy ears as the LOTR elves, are 'wise' in a certain way, live up to 250 years, and are always in danger of extinction. They even have special powers like mind meld and nerve pinch. Perhaps this is why Vulcans weren't given night vision and the males don't have long hair. It would be too much of an obvious thematic copy.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

A few minutes in, I thought about leaving the theater. I only went because the person I went with seemed interested in it, but of course I'd forgotten that this person is quite uninformed about movies. And damn that Google movies website with it's 4/5 star rating. I'll never trust Google movies again. (I just checked imdb now, and it gave a more accurate 4.5/10 rating.) I had thought that this was going to be an action flick, but action flick, it definitely is not. This is really a teen chick flick.

Almost the only redeeming value is the eye candy later in the film in the form of Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black. Wow, what a body, and he has a pretty face, too. (For some reason, from looking at his nose, I was guessing that he might be part Asian.)

The movie assumes you've seen the TV series and know who everyone is. So dropping into this Twilight story cold is quite jarring and makes you think you're missing out on all the inside jokes, and you've made a serious mistake in coming, which you basically have.

Another serious negative for liberal/atheist movie-goers will be the references to human souls, and the brief but 'what-have-I-done,-have-I-come-to-a-red-neck-movie-but-I'm-in-California-dammit' Glenn Beck ad/preview which made my blood boil. But actually these agonizing moments are pretty fleeting, and surprisingly the story did take shape and have drama, if only in disconnected moments. I think it would be a reasonable film to watch on DVD, where you can gaze at some shirtless torsos for a bit longer.

There are at least a couple very strange and counter intuitive casting choices: the hairy chested guy plays the vampire, and the smooth chested guy plays the werewolf.