01.30.07
Posted in Personal at 7:34 pm by Joe Blubaugh
Shortly after seeing Children of Men, I was afflicted with the mother of all colds - stuffed up, coughing like a madman, with a sore throat and a fever. It did not make for a pleasant start to the school year. It’s stunning just how much being sick can put you off your usual activities. I’ve had a really hard time keeping up with school work, and my brain has been feeling like mush. It’s hard to work your way through a convolution integral or a SPICE model when your brain’s busy trying to suppress a cough.
So, that’s where I’ve been the last few weeks. I’m still getting back into this ’school’ swing. After being relatively isolated and steadily employed, the rag-tag scheduling of college and the constant immersion in a pool of people is a systemic shock. I’m liking it, though. Now that my cold’s gone, I’m having a really good time exercising and stretching my brain, as well as my social muscles.
Encouragingly, I’m finding professors much more approachable in my classes this year - somehow, I’m a bit less afraid of them. I’m also figuring out what it is that I’m actually interested in the wide world of EE: Signal processing, digital hardware design, and silicon fabrication. The challenge now is to translate that into some kind of research work and coordinated effort to get ready for grad school. Sorry, wide world of work, but PhDs have much cooler work to do.
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01.14.07
Posted in Personal, Movies at 10:15 am by Joe Blubaugh
Or: What happened to Cuaron?
The movie critics are slobbering all over themselves to praise Children of Men, and it’s being hailed as “The best movie of the year,” and “A heartbreaking valentine to what keeps us human.” The type of movie is right up my alley - dystopian sci-fi is the bread and butter of my fictional existence. Why, then, was I so unimpressed with this critical hit?
The movie is gorgeous. Set pieces, composition, shot selection is simply superb. The action choreography is damn impressive, as well. Technically, this film is great, as are Cuaron’s other picture, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Y Tu Mama, Tambien.
Unlike those pictures, though, the plot for this movie is old, it’s warmed over sci-fi schlock, and not terribly thought-provoking. Maybe I just was not impressed by the supposedly profound insights of Cuaron into government: governments torture people into catatonic states, round up and deport illegal immigrants, are more interested in preserving the status quo than solving problems. Oooh, like this is anything new - see Jose Padilla, the ICE raids, and Congress for the last, oh, 45 years.
It didn’t help that the good guys were such dippy hippies - the girl’s guardian clumsily attempts Tai Chi and is completely unaware of what’s going on in her own group. She’s also completely useless. Michael Caine was the only protagonist that I genuinely cared for. Even Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I’ve loved in films before, is such a two-dimensionally two-faced radical that I just rolled my eyes when I learned about his double-cross. I just don’t see how Clive Owen can position himself so well from the get-go to learn what’s up, yet no suspicions have been raised among other members of the Fishes.
Cuaron also seems to think that he’s got some great allusions to modern life in the film: Christian preachers telling people that this is God’s punishment upon them, Muslims marching through the streets chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and carrying AKs, detainees on boxes with ponchos and wires strapped to them. They come across as over-obvious, ranting speeches, like that guy you know who won’t stop telling you about Mumia over and over again.
Even though I agree with Cuaron about immigration, religion, and government totalitarianism, I couldn’t help but yawn and roll my eyes throughout the film. I’m going to retch if this gets an academy award.
Another statement I’ve heard is that Children of Men succeeds where V for Vendetta failed. While V had its own problems, including the ludicrously cheesy speech by Natalie Portman at the end of the film, V also presented a world I think we’re much more likely to slide into - one where we submit willingly to a horrible system because it’s comfortable and easy.
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01.08.07
Posted in Personal at 4:33 pm by Joe Blubaugh
Or: Courses driving me wild this semester
Digital Design has several flaws that are immediately apparent:
- The instructor looks and acts like Michael McKean
- He also has a predilection for using ‘certainly’ overmuch, as in, ‘That’s certainly interesting.’
- There were 42 powerpoint slides today for a 50 minute lecture
I just hope I can survive the BS associated with this course. The subject matter is extremely interesting to me - in fact, it’s the groundwork for what I hope will be my career. The format is just going to drive me crazy. Courses should never tell you that they are an ‘active learning’ course. It’s like code for cheezy class-involvement routines that annoy the heck out of me.
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