World Builder

If you have a bit of extra time this weekend, I recommend that you watch Bruce Branit’s World Builder video.

“A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.”

Many have hailed this video as a look into the possible future of 3D apps (I think that a comparison to level editing tools like UnrealEd would be more fitting). But to me World Builder is something much more important: it’s a testament to what a committed, talented artist can achieve on modern home computers. This short was created by a single guy over the span of two years, and the results are top notch. The tools that he used are accessible to everybody out there with a bit of industry experience. Sure, some of the acting in this film falls a bit flat, but that doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the movie – it’s “professional grade” through and through. And beneath the shiny VFX surface there’s a neat little story, as well. Highly recommended!

Silent Reviews

• Top Gears, Season 12 Ep 2 & 3- Yes
• Hell Kitchen, Episode 3 & 4 – Yes
• NSCS race in Vegas – Yes
• XNA Game Studio – Yes
• Super Mario Galaxy – Yes
• Hidden dentist fees – No

Spring in Sonoma

Early spring time in Sonoma, always a lovely time. I believe that you can learn a lot about a town by its cemetery – if the graveyard feels like it’s grown with the people, the town is bound to have character. Sonoma’s cemetery is spread around a hillside, with tons of old trees and gravestones that date back into the 1800′s. There’s a couple of hiking trails that connect to the surrounding hills, making the area a fun place to take a Sunday stroll. Keeping company with ghosts has never been easier!

Silent Reviews

• Hell Kitchen, Episode 2 – Yes
• The Biggest Loser – Meh…
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Yes
• Frost/Nixon – Yes
• Top Gear Season 12 opener – Yes
• NNS race in Fontana – No
• NSCS race in Fontana – Meh… (but hey, my driver won!)
• The 81st Annual Tony Awards – Yes (but if I was Peter Gabriel, I’d be pissed)
• The 81st Annual Academy Awards – Not so much (but still fun enough to watch)
• Hugh Jackman – Yes

Best of Oscar, The Conclusion

Well, we did it! Victoria and I finally followed through on something that we’d been talking about since we started dating over four years ago: watch all Best Picture nominees of the year before the Oscar telecast, hoping to gain some real investment in the awards show. If you haven’t read the reviews yet, you can follow the links below:

Series introduction
Part 1: The Reader
Part 2: Slumdog Millionaire
Part 3: Milk
Part 4: Frost/Nixon
Part 5: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

It was a great experience. And we learned a few things along the way: for example that watching five movies in three weeks is quite a bit of work. That abiding by somebody else’s (the movie theater’s) schedule doesn’t come as natural as it once did. We watched two of the movies during the week, and working through lunch just so that I could leave on time to meet Victoria straight at the theater felt positively anachronistic.

But even in the age of home theater, 60 inch TVs and Blu-ray the experience of watching a memorable movie in the theater is still unmatched. It creates memories. A theater becomes synonymous with a certain movie. Especially when you have access to smaller, “art house” type cinemas. We watched Slumdog Millionaire and Milk at Sonoma’s Sebastiani Theater, a small, single-screen affair where we also watched Little Miss Sunshine and Cars. We were just as lucky to catch Frost/Nixon at The Lark, an restored non-profit theater in the heart of Larkspur. They serve alcohol! I remember watching Rent, Juno and a re-run of Donnie Darko there while drinking my beer.

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Best of Oscar, Part 5: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Written by Eric Roth, directed by David Fincher, and starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson and Jared Harris.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

Benjamin Button is born into truly remarkable circumstances: his body’s internal clock is running backwards. Looking like an arthritis-ridden, old and crumpled baby when he is born on the final day of World War I, Benjamin gets increasingly younger through the years. Abandoned by his shocked biological father, Benjamin is raised by substitute parents at a retirement home instead, where Benjamin’s condition doesn’t easily reveal itself. It is here, at an early age, that Benjamin meets Daisy Fuller. We immediately hear destiny calling: the connection is instant, Benjamin’s and Daisy’s lives become intertwined, and as their paths keep crossing through the decades, the inevitable love affair develops. And of course Benjamin lives a truly extraordinary life. “Young in body, old in spirit” takes on a whole new meaning as we watch Benjamin Button go through the ages, see him reconnect with his estranged father, and, through Benjamin and Daisy, witness a unique split-screen perspective that explores the meaning of growing old.

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