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no matter how you spin it, the time machine was a terrible movie. first, the plot holes. the theme of time traveling in a movie is usually ripe with faults in logic, but this was especially true for this film. if he goes back in time, shouldn't he meet his original self? how can he park his time machine in one public place as he travels and not have the machine materialize into something solid, like a wall of a building? then, there are the morlocks. i didn't find them to be scary at all. don't they have test audiences to determine which monster costumes would be scary, therefore posing a threat, therefore appearing dangerous? i also have reservations about the casting. samantha mumba might have legions of fans around the world, but i don't really know who she is, don't remember any of her songs, and i don't think she's particularly beautiful. not saying that they should only cast attractive people, but i didn't really care too much about her or her people. as far as i'm concerned, alexander hartdegen (guy pearce) should've gotten back into his time machine when he had the chance and go back home. and orlando jones as the holographic librarian? i thought his appearances sort of ruined the movie, changed the tone of the film. is this suppose to be a serious reflection about the nature of time travel and the morality of changing the past or altering the future? or was it just a serious action adventure with heavy elements of fantasy? or is it suppose to be a comedy, full of cartoony monsters and over-the-top characters?

  • best inappropriate moment: the audience laughing when alexander saves emma from being shot to death by a new york city mugger only to be run over by a horse carriage!
  • i thought the image of the moon blowing up was pretty cool.
  • i will say one thing about samantha mumba: nice choice of clothing! that's an awfully revealing chain mail blouse she's wearing when we first see her.
  • spoilers: when the uber-morlock (jeremy irons) tells alexander that some surface dwellers are kidnapped to become breeding partners with mara (samantha mumba) in a cage nearby. i thought it'd have been if alexander becomes all outraged that mara will be used as a sex slave, but then the uber-morlock would tell him, "no, mara we're having for dinner. you're the one we're going to impregnate." plot twist!
  • if the uber-morlock can read minds, how come he wasn't able to see what alexander was up when alexander pulled him in for a battle royale inside of the traveling time machine?
  • i didn't realize that the time machine is not only a transportation device, but it can also be used as a bomb!

the time machine is a fluff movie, one of those films that seem to be entirely a creation of the studio movie machine, devoid of any real substance, made solely from marketing data and produced to target a specific demographic, which i imagine are young people, hence some of the casting choices. i don't say this about many movies because i feel you should decide for yourself whether a film is good or not, but i'm willing to say in the case of the time machine that you should definitely skip if possible. it's a shame, because guy pearce is a such a great actor, but he's very much a wasted asset in this movie, he should stick with his dramatic roles. leave the action hero stuff for the likes of keanu and brendan frasier. his talents lie elsewhere! if nothing else, at least the movie looked good on the big screen.

i think clockstoppers will be a much better time movie...

my normal sunday morning dim sum with laurie was moved to saturday because lucy wanted to come and bring her brother james along as well, here in boston visiting for spring break, a dim sum virgin no less. before i left the house to catch the bus, i got a call from laurie asking if we could take the subway into chinatown instead of taking her car. i got to harvard square and waited for laurie and the gang at the aforementioned location outside of au bon pain. harvard square at 11am on a saturday was already bustling with people, even more so today because of the unusually warm weather. sitting on the marble wall, i just so happened to have bumped into jared out getting brunch with his lady friend and some other people. we chatted briefly, touched bases, i recommended he read palahniuk's survivor, he recommended michael moore's stupid white men. it's cool to just bump into people when you least expect it, especially in a public place. for a short period of time i felt like mister popular. minutes later, laurie arrived, wet hair and a dunkin' donut coffee in her hand. we sat together waiting for lucy and james' arrival. when they got there, together we took the subway into chinatown.

after a short wait we got a shared table. the four of us together ate $35 worth of dim sum. that's kind of funny, because last weekend when i came here with manny, just the two of us ate over $30, cause we can eat! i saw that evil head waiter who rushed us out the door last weekend. fortunately he wasn't working our area of the restaurant. i ordered tripe and chicken feet but no one was brave enough to try them. i didn't even really want chicken feet, it's starting to become a least favorite dim sum item for me. tripe though, i gotta have my tripe, i didn't mind that i didn't have to share the tripe with anyone else.

we made a brief stop at a local grocery store, where lucy bought a jar of vietnamese hot sauce, and i got a stick of japanese soap gum (lucy paid for me). i handed everyone a piece, and we all arrived at the general consensus that it's a disgusting flavor of gum. the center of the gum itself is filled with this fizzing powder that gives it even more of a bubbly taste. nasty!

we walked down washington street then headed to the boston common and boston garden. leaving chinatown, i was horrified to discover that to chau, my favorite vietnamese restaurant, has either burned down or is being renovated. in either case, the restaurant is no longer there, just a gutted space with construction people clearing out the inside and throwing stuff away in a large steel trash box. is this my second favorite restaurant that's burned down in a little bit over a month? i think i might be cursed. restaurants should pay me to not consider them my favorite, otherwise they'll burn down too.

what a beautiful day in the boston garden! the temperature today reached as high as 65 degrees. suffice to say, a lot of people were out enjoying the weather. the last time i was in the boston garden was back in october, when john and i walked through here on a warm weekend day, taking a break from work at the office. the swan boat pond had been drained, just a large empty pool of dry mud with a few wet puddles for mallard ducks and canada geese to wade in. we saw a father trying to feed his baby to a goose. i don't think that'll leave an emotional scar, do you? i paid particular attention to the george washington on horseback statue, having seen the paul revere on horseback statue yesterday in the north end. washington looks dignified in this statue, paul revere just looked angry in his.

a walk down posh newbury street was our next order of business. all the beautiful people were out and about of course. every so often we'd hear the rumble of a motorcycle down the street. on the one hand i think that's cool, because i like motorcycles, but on the otherhand i know these people are total attention seekers, because if they were real bikers, no way would they purposely ride down newbury street with traffic lights every single block. poser bikers, no me gustan! we briefly stopped off at a starbucks to 1) get something to drink, but 2) more importantly, use their bathroom. i got a small chai latte which i thought was a bad idea because i was already overdressed for such a warm day but now i was drinking something hot as well. laurie informed me though that that is the correct thing to do, because it cools you down faster. we drank our beverages standing outside of starbucks. that's where i saw teresa, former tsh coworker. i didn't bother to say hi and neither did she. this was actually my second time seeing her - i also saw her from the car in boston the last time laurie and i went out to dim sum. small world. lucy gave us each a chewing stick (aka flavored toothpick) and we made it to the virgin megastore, each one of us with a toothpick sticking out of our mouth.

at the virgin megastore i bought a copy of i am legend by richard matheson. when i read the blurb, i knew i had to get it. the story of the last surviving human in a world populated by vampires. during the day he hunts bloodsuckers, but at night they hunt him. i totally fell in love with the premise. i also got kylie minogue's latest cd, fever, one of my guilty pleasures. can't a man indulge once in a while? i helped lucy pick out a bluegrass cd, and later we discovered the amazing virgin megastore listening machine (not to be confused with the sampling stations) that allows you to pass a cd through a detector and you can listen to the music before you buy!

we parted ways outside of the virgin megastore, lucy and james off on some more sibling adventures, laurie and i walking the length of mass ave to central square. i made a big stink about the distance, but it was actually the perfect day for a walk (i had on sensible shoes too) and we arrived in central square in no time.

i made it home and quickly started reading i am legend, plowing through page 93. just one of those books you can't put down. i can totally see it as a movie. i seem to love books that have a very cinematic narrative, the words actually paint a vivid picture of the scene in my head. invisible monsters and my collection of philip k. dick short stories will just have to wait. i kind of don't want to go to bed tonight until i finish i am legend, i'm dying to know how it ends.

later tonight after a quick ma-la hot pot dinner, i went to pick up john (back in boston again from pennsylvania) and dan and together we went down to fenway 13 to catch the time machine. we had arrived slightly late and could only find seats in the front rows of the theatre, but it actually wasn't that bad since the screen was curved. afterwards, with a slight drizzle, i drove them back to brighton and i returned to belmont.