Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Working from home -- Not as easy as it would seem

I'm a master student since May 2010. I have an office at school where I can work. However, it takes a long time  to authorize money transactions and administration, so I do not have a computer at my office yet. Up to now, I have been using my personal laptop to work at school or at home.

But then, my laptop stopped working last week. Video card died. That would not usually be something so bad. My laptop is still under warranty, I called DELL tech support and then sent me a box so that I can send my laptop for repair.

That means that for about two weeks, I need to work from home. And that is really not as simple as I thought it would be at first.

There are actually good things about working from home. There is no need to wake up really early. No time is wasted in the metro. You take breaks to do stuff at home like starting the dishwasher. Overall it seems like a gain in time.

However, there are also quite a lot of bad stuff about working from home. Since I do not need to go to school, I do not necessarily wake up early. That is a problem since I prefer to work in the morning than later in the day.

I also realized the fact that I am not as comfortable when working at home than when I am working from school. My apartment is not an environment from work. I get a lot of distractions. There is no guarantee that I will have silence to concentrate. On a final note, it is also way harder to share ideas with co workers this way.

I guess I wish my laptop is repaired soon so that I can go back to school. I would not get this feeling about wasting my time. :\

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Closing comments on Fantasia 2010

Alright, at first I thought that writing an individual review for all of my chosen movies at Fantasia 2010 would be a good idea. I ended up creating longer posts than I thought for the reviews that I made, and I ended up being quite busier than I thought I would be.

So there we are. It's been a long time already since Fantasia, and I think it would take a long time to cover all movies so I will not be doing a review for all of them.

However, I feel bad for dropping the idea, so I am at least going to give my overall thoughts about the 2010 edition of the festival.

I have to say that for me, Fantasia has always been a good opportunity to discover pretty good movies that I would not have known about otherwise. As I said in an earlier post, I saw 12 movies this year and this should have been enough to find out good stuff.

I actually think that Fantasia 2010 was a bit of a disappointment for me. Out of 12 movies, none of them were actually bad, but there was not any that could really qualify as outstanding. I will still talk about my favorite stuff.

First of all, Japanese animation did a pretty good job at entertaining me. I saw both Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror and Summer Wars. The first one was actually 3D animation and the second one your usual 2D animation. Oblivion Island had really beautiful graphics, and the story was really cute. On the other hand, Summer Wars featured a pretty original setting, and the plot development was quite interesting.

Korea did a good job this year too. I liked Blades of Blood and Woochi. Blades of Blood was set in Korea at a time where soldiers used sword while guns were beginning to be used. It was a good blend of action, humor and ethical reflection. On the other hand, Woochi was half in the past, half in the present. Even though Woochi seemed a bit less original at first, I think it was a better movie than Blades of Blood.

(I would like to say on a side note that old men with beards from Korea all look alike, and I was confused in both movies because I could not make the difference between several characters.)

Bodyguards and Assassins might be my favorite movie of Fantasia 2010. It is about a revolution in China at the beginning of the 20th century. The first half of the movie is pretty calm, being mostly discussions and planning the revolution. The second half of the movie features a good share of action, while they try to make the plan work. The biggest flaw in this movie would be the title, since I do not think it expresses clearly what the movie is about. I think most of the crowd thought they would be seeing a lot of fighting with assassins.

Finally, 2010 was my first experience at one of DJ XL5's performances, as I went to the Bollywood Zappin' Party. I don't think this man is the best crowd speaker there ever was, but his choice of scenes and match up is extremely funny. At first I was not sure if I would be enjoying myself for this one, but it turned out that I laughed a lot the whole evening and I had a good experience.

That's it for Fantasia 2010. If I ever feel the need to make reviews next year I will try to make them immediately after each movie. Doing everything afterwards is clearly too much work.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

2010/07/13 - Tears For Sale (Director's Cut)

Serbian movies were one of the themes for Fantasia 2010. Since I usually try to select my movies from different countries, I figured I should at least buy tickets for one from Serbia.

From the Serbian movie lineup, Tears For Sale seemed to be the one with the highest level of sanity. As far as I remember, I also think it was the only one which was set in the past. If we add to this the fact that it is about a village populated solely by women, I think Tears For Sale was a good pick.

The movie is taking place in a small Serbian village during the first world war. At that time, all the men were gone to war, so very few of them were left in the village. As only one old man is left in the village, we are explained the cause of death for the last two men. It is important to note that one of them died transforming the village vineyard into a mine yard.

The two main characters are sisters. Their job is to cry at other people's funeral. Because of the vineyard being turned into a mine yard, there is a new dead girl every week (or whatever the regular interval is). Every young girl's life in this village is a tragedy, as each and every one of them is bound to die a virgin. That is the consequence of the village being only women.

For this reason, the only old man left in the village is very valuable, no matter how old and ugly he is. However, both sisters end up killing him by accident. They end up on a quest to bring more male to the village, haunted by their grandmother's ghost.

Each of them actually succeeds in finding a suitable groom. They are now faced with the possibility of never going back to their village and keep the men for themselves, or going back and complete their mission to the village.

They eventually go back to the village. Obviously, this causes a lot of drama, as the situation makes it hard for both men to be faithful to their new girlfriend.

My intention here is not to spoil the movie, so I will not say more.

I actually think that the setting was very original. I also think that by the end of the movie, each sister had her share of decisions to make, and we are able to see the consequences of the choices they made. A lot of things happen once they get back home, and it is very easy for the public to consider what could have happened if some little details had been a bit different.

The movie itself lasts 100 minutes, but it actually felt really short. Maybe this feeling was a consequence of the general setting in the village being a longer video sequence than the happenings once they get back with their husbands. By the end of the movie, I felt as though the ending had been a bit rushed.

I am left with one big question mark about this village. Why do they keep going in the mine yard? Every week they pick the shortest straw to decide who will be the one to die? That's plainly stupid. They could simply avoid drinking wine. Or start a new vine yard at some other place. This was a key element of the plot, but it was simply not logical...

For a first contact with Serbian cinema, Tears For Sale was not so bad. I could not say it was one of my best movies from Fantasia 2010, and I think I was expecting a little more from the movie, but I still enjoyed myself pretty much.

Friday, August 6, 2010

2010/07/13 - First Squad: The Moment of Truth

First Squad. A Russian movie with Japanese animation, featuring zombies during World War II. I usually like Russian attitude and ways of thinking, and Japanese are usually unmatched when it comes to 2D animation. This should be good.

Tuesday, 13 PM, small theater. I figured not many people would come for this one. It turns out that I ended up meeting 5 different people I knew there. On the other hand, they thought it would be sold out. None of us were right, the theater was almost full.

So the movie starts, we see Nadya, a kid doing some sort of divination tricks with army soldiers. Suddenly they get attacked, we see German (or maybe Russians, depending on where she was at that moment) dropping bombs on the army. Chaos and panic. People try to survive, and then...

OMFG. What is that?

The movie now features a real life human historian, on a black background, filling us in on the situation during this part of the war between Russians and Germans. Okay... this was surprising. I am not saying it is bad, at first I simply thought it would only be an animated movie.

The movie goes on, constantly switching between the main animated story, and testimonies from historians or war veterans. Nadya eventually gets back to her headquarters as an elite kid soldier. From there on, she tries to bring back her former squad partners from the dead in order to fight dead knights the German army are planning to bring to war. By the end of the movie, she succeeds in her task, and the evil dead knight seems vanquished.

During human interviews, we learn how both Russia and Germany tries to research ways to revive the dead as soldiers during the war. As this seems quite possible, it also seems as though they are trying to tell us that what we are seeing in the movie, with zombies and everything, is actually what really happened during WWII.

All this knowledge about what happened during the war was actually interesting. However, by the end of the movie, it acted more as a mood-killer than as a way to help us understand what was happening. I have the feeling that it would have been best to feature all those interviews as bonus feature on a DVD. That way, it would have been possible to view this, without breaking the general flow of the story.

Now let us go back to the real story, as in what is happened to Nadya and her friends. If we forget about the real humans, First Squad is actually a good movie. The animation was good, the plot was good, and it was refreshing to see a retelling of WWII that was completely different from what we are used to see. No god sent American soldiers that came to save the day. This time, it's about Russia struggling to get their elite kid to defeat a horde of evil undead soldiers.

Apart from the interviews, the movie still had its share of down sides. Overall, the movie was actually quite short. If we take out the interviews, I think the movie would be less than an hour. This feels more like an episode than a movie. If we consider the fact that at the end, the war does not seem to be over, maybe we will get more episodes of this.

Another consequence of the movie being too short was something I perceived as a lack of challenge. At first she's lost. Then she finds her way home. She gets a new missions. She goes to get her friends from the dead. They fight. They win. At no point in the movie Nadya ends up facing serious difficulties, she never really needs to come up with new solutions. I think this is something that could have been better, and more challenge would have given us a more lengthy movie.

If we pack all this together, First Squad was actually a movie I enjoyed seeing. The characters were cool, the animation was good. The setting felt like something new and refreshing, even thought it was World War II. The interviews disrupted the general flow of the story, but they still brought us some information, and helped to understand what was happening in relation to the real WWII.

2010/07/08 - The Sorcerer's Apprentice

I usually try not to miss the opening movie of Fantasia Festival, simply because it feels like a big event. Since it's the first event of the year for the festival, the featured movie is generally expected to be a big hit, and important guests are here to present it to the public.

The opening movie for 2010 was The Sorcerer's Apprentice, as a Canadian premiere. At first I was not sure if I wanted to go. Was it a good idea to use one of my ten movie slots for a movie that would be in regular theaters several weeks later? I could instead choose a movie that I would not necessarily be able to watch afterwards.

However, I figured that most of my friends were going to the premiere, so if I went in regular theaters afterwards, I would probably end up going alone. I also figured that it was in fact cheaper at Fantasia than in theaters, and the main actor is not there to answer questions from the public in theaters.

So here I am, in my seat, ready to watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Before the movie starts, an invisible voice tells us that Jay Baruchel is here as a guest for the movie, and that he will tell us a few words before the movie starts.

At first I did not know who Jay Baruchel was, and I did not know that he had been a voice actor for How To Train Your Dragon. I was actually quite surprised to notice how his voice and speech pattern were almost identical to Hiccup's in the movie. I understand why the character felt that much realistic.

After a few people speaking, it was time to actually watch the movie. Overall, I cannot say I was impressed by the main plot of the movie. Basically the guy discovers he is a sorcerer, learns about the existence of bad guys, trains and eventually defeats them. In parallel, there is also this girl that he likes, and your usual romantic part in an action driven movie.

However, The Sorcerer's Apprentice does not try to impress us with a new pattern for action movies. The elements that make the film remarkable are the characters and the multitude of jokes. The duo formed by Jay Baruchel and Nicolas Cage was simply brilliant. They really felt like an actual sorcerer and his apprentice. It also really felt as though they were simply being themselves. It did not surprise me that several jokes in the movie were actually not on script and created on the spot by the actors during the production.

On the other side, the evil sorcerer's and his apprentice were far from boring. The sorcerer using his small powers in the present as an illusionist, therefore being overly popular and narcissist, felt as a sort of cameo towards Criss Angel.

To keep it simple, The Sorcerer's Apprentice was a great movie. Although the plot was very basic, the actors were very good, and there were enough jokes to keep the viewers laughing a lot during the movie. I would recommend it for anyone who missed it at Fantasia.

Hyouzan's Fantasia 2010 impressions

I first figured I would write here at least once a week. I guess I am not as disciplined as I thought I would be. :\

As I said during my introduction, I had been thinking about creating a personal blog for a while before actually doing it. However, what really gave me motivation to start a blog was the 2010 edition of Fantasia Festival. After each movie, I felt the need to share my impressions, and I figured a blog was the best medium to do so.

I guess this is enough of an introduction. Let's get to the main event and see what were my impressions for each movie. I will actually create a separate post for each movie, so that it is easier to spot each movie individually.