Sephy’s Platzish

If you were looking to give me advice on something, I regret to inform you that this isn’t the time right now. Actually, it’s time for another movie review!

A while ago, I had mentioned some DVDs that I had received, and as it turns out, one of them was Short Circuit. You can probably guess how it ends (generically) as there is a sequel, but I belive that this is the first time that I’ve seen the first movie in a long time, if at all; that’s because I was a bit confused and was thinking that this was the movie where Johnny is fixing himself in the Radio Shack, but it is the sequel that this happens in.

Before tackling the actual movie, I want to bring something important to the attention of DVD makers - if you claim that “SHORT CIRCUIT IS PRESENTED IN A 2.35:1 WIDESCREEN ASPECT RATIO”, then make sure that the whole movie is actually in that AR. When I put the DVD into the computer to take some screenshots, the actual movie was presented in a 4:3 AR, standard for most TVs, but this isn’t disclosed on the box.

Another quite surprising thing about the DVD is the lack of extras. Most DVDs now have English, Spanish and French language and subtitle tracks, but Short Circuit has two English tracks - Dolby 5.1 and Dolby 2.0, and does not have any subtitles (it doesn’t even appear to be closed-captioned as there is no CC logo on the box). Additionally, there are no additional features such as a director’s commentary, deleted scenes (though the director did put some of them into the closing credits), or the theatrical trailer (see below). In fact, here is the menu for the movie -

Now, the feature presentation…

It all starts with scenes of a computer-type device being formed with the last scene showing S.A.I.N.T. 5 operational, ready to have its manufacturer’s tag placed on it. This is all in preparation for a bunch of tanks to come and destroy a very nice flower patch before they get destroyed by these new S.A.I.N.T. machines. Fortunately, they decided to place plastic replica people into the vehicles. Afterwards, the robots are placed into a police line-up where they are praised for destroying these tanks.

You know that there is trouble ahead when you hear thunder in the background, forcing the well-prepared brass to take the presentation inside the Nova offices. This begs the question - if these robots were real, if they had to take the presentation inside, then woulnd’t that mean that they couldn’t use these robots in their operation GotchaLast if it were raining or snowing in Moscow?

Now, since the only place they can actually charge the robots is outside, and there’s a thunderstorm approaching (you’d think that if it was raining at the demonstration ground, it’d be raining at the Nova building, but it’s actually clear when the Trailways buses appear), the general tendency would be to make sure that the electronics are protected from electrical surge, but the numbskull in charge of the charging of the robots just kinda blows it off and, of course, what happens? Yep…

In the meantime, the inventor’s assistant Ben is trying to get Newton (the inventor) out and hobnobbing with the brass, including a visiting Senator; of course Newton is the stereotypical geek - insulated to the world, but he uses his robotic hand to give him an assist in replying to Ben’s request

A brilliant move on the behalf of the director is to actually use some of the footage from the beginning of the movie during the hobnobbing scenes, before the discovery of the disappearance of Number 5…

Three observations about these robots, and Nova in General -

1. They are incredibly light as a trashcan being pushed by a robot is enough to overpower them.
2. Exposed wiring looks incredibly like a dog’s teat.
3. Their security guard can’t read the sign at the entrance

Fortunately, 5 manages to get away from the people from “Security” bent on his destruction, and finds his way onto the top of a food wagon that caters “partys”

Even in the 80s, there was some great product placement - take a look at the ads, commercials and other assortment of cool, old stuff that they got into the movie

The one bit of cultural knowledge that Number 5 manages to pick up on the best are the antics of the Three Stooges. The great thing is that he has just enough time to program the other robots to mimic their act. It’s interesting that Howard didn’t raise a red flag over having not just $11 million, but $44 million of robot out there (like he had done when Ben & Newton decided to take Number 1 along with them and their Apple Macintosh).

The most interesting thing about the movie is the relationship that Newton (the man who hadn’t driven for 5 years, but isn’t awarded a cake from Ben - clearly 5’s driving was worse) and Stephanie make. The meet at first when her van is hijacked by Number 5 and she rides along trying to get him to stop; and that meeting ends in her wanting to meet with him again. By the end, they’re planning to go off to Wyoming and live their lives together, despite all the times that she thought that he was lying to her.

Interestingly, in the scene where Number 5 summons Newton to meet Stephanie, radio geeks will appreciate the fact that you could see that they used a labelmaker to make labels to represent the five robots and the FCC licenses that they had taken for their use, but since the movie is 20 years old, the licenses have probably lapsed, thus they do not appear in their online listings.

This is definitely one movie that deserves to be seen, and the main reason isn’t the story; it’s the fella that steals the show comedically, Ben Jabituya, portrayed by Fisher Stevens. Basically, if he starts speaking, expect to laugh. Below is an audio clip from early in the movie; there’s a point where there is a sound that goes pfft (note that this is a poor textual representation of a computer, so the actual sound will be different). You should refer back to the picture of the reply to Ben’s request to go to hobnob when this happens

Here’s a second audio clip, just because I can do it; this is of one of the more memorable lines from the movie (maybe that’s just because there’s a radio host in my area who might have used this as a drop-in once or twice); just after Number 5 reactivates himself, and Ben and the other Nova employee stop at the side of the road. The question is “What should we do?”…

Lastly, here is the trailer for the movie. I know I’ve heard the narrator’s work previously in other commercials; his talents used to be quite common on TV, but maybe I’m wrong about that.

Addendum: Sorry for the odeo player deciding to play the audio at double pitch; I really don’t know how that happened, but I bet it has something to do with sample rates….

I’ve changed my blog over to the new beta style, and I think it’s all in order still, though I notice there are a couple of spacing issues like with my little sidebar graphic, and the Aussie in Training and nablopomo logos are a little bit off, but I know that I can figure out a way to fix it, so it’s not that big of a deal

In other news, I’ve put some new links into the sidebar and I’m going to be adding quite a few more now that I think I’ve got everything sorted out as far as the stuff I had on my old style to what’s here in beta.

Well, I’ve finally had a chance to hear the album in full, as you might have noticed in my little last.fm box. Overall I like the work that they’ve done, and I definitely think that Lukas Rossi (for those who might not have heard his last name before; I’ll certainly say that it’s a better fit than Robicheaux or however Dilana spells her last name) was the best choice to make. So anyway, just some thoughts on the tracks on the album:

1. It’s On - A good start to the album; the lyrics are solid, and hopefully they’re foreshadowing good things ahead with the lyrics “I don’t ever want to fade away”. Let it shine on.

2. Leave the Lights On - This is one track that you heard clips of somewhat often on TV and on the MSN site, but for the life of me I can’t place where it was in the broadcasts. There are some neat sax riffs in there. Some of the lyrics might suggest that it’s about making a certain type of film that certain members of the band might be somewhat familiar with….

3. Be Yourself (and 5 Other Clichés) - This song has been in my head for the last couple of days now; specifically the chorus; again, a good track and very listenable.

4. It’s All Love - The first thing is that there’s a lyric that says “never felt enough call it hate”, but for some reason I keep thinking it should be “Colin Hay“. I guess it’s one of those mindgames that you play on yourself… This track shows a bit of the softer side of the group, but it still has a “rock” feel to it.

5. Can’t Bring Myself to Light This Fuse - Here’s a song that shows a definitely softer side of Lukas, and shows the versatility that he has; it is interesting to put these songs back-to-back, but I think that it works; it’s almost a good idea as it gives an 8-minute break from the real “hard” rock (though I think it’d have been cool to let the rock stick together with itself as well).

6. Underdog - This track is one that you should immediately recoginse if you’ve seen the show, as this was the main theme for the commercial bumpers and the closing titles. I think it’s a good track, and the lyrics are fairly solid; it’s another song that is quite listenable.

7. Make No Mistake…This is the Take - I find that I don’t remember much of this track, even after listening to it; I think that the title makes it somewhat difficult to get a grasp; generally when you put an ellipsis into a song title, there is a bit of difficulty in picking up on it.

8. Headspin - When I had first heard this version of it, I thought it was quite good and had loved what they did to it, but after quite a few listens to it, I think that there was definitely room for improvement in it - least of which is the fact that they seem to have really slowed it down. It’s still a great song though. I forgot to mention this, but the one thing that kinda bugs me is the pronounciation of the word “paradise”. It sounds like he’s saying it as “pair-ee-dice”; it just kinda rubs me the wrong way…

9. Valentine - To me, this is one of those songs that seems to just go on for a while then stop; another track that I don’t remember much of. I have to say that it is somewhat disconcerting that the fade-out starts with about 20 seconds left in the song.

10. Social Disgrace - Another track that is admittedly not the greatest, but there is are some good riffs on guitar in there.

11. The Dead Parade - I haven’t heard many rock songs that start out with a choir singing. I think that it does work for this song, because I think it makes a cool effect, especially when they come back in and sing as backup.

Overall, it’s a very good record, but there is room for improvement. The tracks are quite short, with the longest one being just over 5 minutes, and 5 of the 11 tracks being shorter than 3:30. I don’t know what the exact reasoning for that is; it’s not like they’re doing them to perform on the TV show or anything. However, when they were on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, they performed at least two songs, but since they showed 6 minutes of ads between the performances, the second one got cut off in the middle with viewers being pointed to a site where you could view the video, but there was only one problem: it wasn’t there when I looked.

I hope that they do decide to do a second record after this, and this time have enough time to invest so that they have some longer songs and maybe be able to do some of Lukas’ older works from Cleavage and Rise Electric (it’d also be interesting to hear what they could do with some of the Crüe or Metallica as well).

If you’re interested in reading another review of the album, Snoskred has posted her thoughts on the album.

When I was growing up, I never watched that many movies; in fact, I remember people asking what the last movie I was at in the theatre, and I’d say the name of a movie that’d been out on tape for a few years already. We also never watched too many movies at home; we first got cable in 1993, and whenever we would sign up for the movie channels we’d rarely watch them.

So anyway, because of this, there are literally dozens of movies that most people have watched that I haven’t watched (or even worse, never heard of). I was happy not having watched these movies because I didn’t think that they had any significance to me, but there was cultural significance. Now, I have a list about as long as my arm of movies that I want to watch or should watch. Some of the movies in this list are (in no particular order, and includes some movies that I’ve watched already) -

Back to the Future trilogy
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Romeo + Juliet
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Pump up the Volume
Top Gun
The Client
Dead Man Walking

Then, we have the Aussie Movies -
Strictly Ballroom
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Muriel’s Wedding

I *know* that I am missing quite a few movies from this list, but what I want to do is make kind of a “master” list of movies that I should watch, and try to acquire them and watch them.

I’d be interested to know if there are other movies that are ones that everyone should watch and that I probably missed out on watching; leave a comment if you have some suggestions for me to take up, and we’ll let it go from there.

…to “El Bloke” (Telemundo English for ‘the block”, which the proper Spanish spelling should be “el bloque”)

The main program in El Bloke is “Vas o No Vas” - which, if you’re familiar with TV show logos is exactly what it purports to be - “Deal or No Deal” in Spanish

Tonight’s contestant is Alba, who has brought her mother Tita along with her. As you can see, she has just turned down an offer of $23,000. After the break, she gets to choose her suitcase (portafolio/s in spanish).

She lucks out as it only contains $100, and the producers want us to know that, because of this, the offer will go up!

And does it ever! Now, the bank (who calls, but we have this elaborate presentation with a model) is offering $14,000 more - only because two of the three highest prizes are still available, $100,000 and $125,000.

So, what does she do? Reject that offer! “¡No Voy!” she says and opens the next case which has……

Of course, this is great news as the offer is sure to go up, but our host wants to have Tita stand with the banking model for the big reveal of the contents of the suitcase, along with the reveal of the banker’s new offer, which is….

Considering that some of the plans for the moneys they’d win is to have some kind of surgery for a hernia, along with a trip for Tita and her grandkids, this would be enough - considering the previous offers, it would make sense to take that offer…but…

She rejects it; again the producers remind us that $50,000 is a good offer, but they want to continue playing, so we select the next suitcase, number 21, which has the top available prize, $125,000; the host’s face while talking to the banker portends the bad news about to be levelled -
And here’s the offer -

In this set of photos, we see some more information provided to us by the producers (she has decided to turn down the new offer, but there is still that $100,000 out there). After she selects the case - unlucky number 13 - a temptation is offered. Here the producers are lazy and didn’t even change the placard in the suitcase from the last temptation offer.

She’s decided to turn down the offer, and go with case #13…let’s hope it’s a low number…
Oh no! Surely the offer is going to go down…but by how much? Here comes the banker’s model with the suitcase and the offer…

Ouch! But, as she says, they came with nothing and even if they leave with a little bit, it was a great experience, so “No Voy” she says and she goes on to open the final suitcase.

It’s a show that is quite easy to follow, and I think it’s more fun because there seems to be a natural energy to it rather than the US English version with Howie Mandel; then again, I think it might be that there isn’t as much of the rowdiness you see in the English-language crowd along with the fact that the people on the Spanish version seem more humble, and quite frankly, more docile; that makes it a pleasant viewing experience - of course the models help watching