Last week Clinton raised eyebrows by suggesting that she'd like Obama as her VP. Obama returned fire by suggesting that people who are in second place for the nomination are in no position to ask the person in first place to be their running mate. Thus hopes for a "dream ticket" that might unite the Clinton and Obama camps were temporarily dashed, although nothing is ever ruled out in politics.

Of course, if Obama wins the nomination (and for the record, I hope he does), I highly doubt Clinton would accept a role as his VP (even if Obama offered it, which is equally doubtful). So I think Clinton saying she'd like him as a VP was mostly a political move on her part. She's reminding voters that if there's going to be a dream ticket with both Clinton and Obama, hers is going to be the top name.

At the same time, I think it was also an acknowledgment on her part that if she wins the nomination, there will be a lot of resentful Obama supporters. What's more, these are new, highly energized Democratic voters whose support she would desperately need in November. It's likely that the only way to retain these new voters and keep them energized would be to put Obama on the ticket too. So really, I think if Clinton wins the nom, Obama is the only possible choice for VP. The democratic party needs Obama.

That said, I think Obama is far more of a unifying force than Clinton is, and if he wins the nomination he may have an easier time winning over Clinton's supporters (who tend to be more the "party faithful" types). However, if he wants to reach out now (and perhaps play a bit of politics himself) he might hint in some subtle manner (or maybe not-so-subtle) that he'd strongly consider choosing a female running mate as his vice-presidential candidate if he gets the nomination. Maybe not Clinton, but possibly someone less divisive who he can work well with (Pelosi? Albright? Other thoughts?). Just as Clinton may have been trying to eat into Obama's support with the "dream ticket" idea, Obama might be able to chip into Clinton's support base with this move.

And assuming that he followed through on this (and maybe he already has someone in mind), I think many Clinton supporters would rally behind him, and maybe we'd get a ticket that would truly unite the Democrats after all.

Of course, in my mind, any Democratic ticket that wins in November will be a "dream ticket", but I'd be sad if Obama weren't at the top of that ticket. I've waited a long time for a candidate with this much intelligence, guts, and charisma to come along who actually aligns with my positions. I'd love to see what he could do if given a chance to really change things.

Ok, you aspiring commercial directors, here's the deal.

Just because you can now make a dog appear to sing, using computer generated (and yet anatomically impossible) lip/mouth movements, does not mean you should. No matter how impressive your software is, this will always look fake and creepy.

In the old days, we were perfectly happy to see a dog trotting along happily looking like a dog, and hear a voice actor exclaiming: "I'm gonna get me some kibbles 'n bits!" or "It's BACON!", and use our imagination. We knew it was the dog speaking; we did not need to see fake looking lips mouthing every syllable. We were happy to awwww over the cuteness of the dog, rather than seeing an otherwise cute dog turned into something resembling animated taxidermy.

This also applies to commercials featuring deceased celebrities hawking products, commercials featuring singing and/or dancing babies, and the entire movie "Baby Geniuses".

A Dog's Breakfast is an amusing black comedy, written, directed, and starring David Hewlett (who some people may know from Stargate: SG1 or Stargate: Atlantis). In fact, all the actors in the movie have appeared in one Stargate series or another, the most memorable perhaps being Christopher Judge (a.k.a "the big black guy with the gold thing on his forehead"). Hewlett plays Patrick, a quirky and reclusive loser in his late 30s who lives with his dog in his childhood home, his parents having died a decade earlier in a car accident. One day, his sister (played by Hewlett's real-life sister, Kate), shows up with her new fiance Ryan, who it turns out is a smarmy actor on a cheesy space-themed soap opera called "Star-Crossed" (where Marilyn also works as a makeup artist). Of course, most brothers might feel a protective impulse towards their little sister, but Patrick is not most brothers. He's quite a bit more insane, so his feelings in fact range from overprotective to downright hostile to possibly murderous. It's a recipe for some potential gruesome acts, and more than a few laughs. Still, as comedies go, this is more of a grey comedy than a true black one; you might say that its bark is much worse than its bite. Speaking of which, putting in an exceptional performance in his feature film debut is Mars, a rottweiler-terrier mix who does an excellent job of being a dog and doing what dogs generally do.

I laughed quite a bit throughout the movie, although occasionally Patrick's paranoia and neuroses go a bit over the top and become more tiresome than funny. Still, this movie was a fun, cute diversion. Nothing too deep or serious, but an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. Dog lovers and Stargate fans will probably find it even more amusing.

Outsourced was my favorite of the five Cinequest movies I saw this year. This was a truly charming and hilarious romantic comedy that totally nailed both the romance *and* the comedy (whereas the mainstream Hollywood studios rarely seem to get one out of two right these days). The film involves an American middle manager who is sent to India when his entire Seattle call center is outsourced. His mission: to train his replacement, and bring the new call center up to company standards. Unlike many fish-out-of-water comedies, this one never felt cruel, the characters displayed actual intelligence, and both cultures were made up of actual human beings rather than stereotypes.

But aside from the humor, witty dialogue, and well-done romance, the film also manages to sneak in a very powerful and positive message, without hitting you over the head with it. That message: even with all the fears and bullshit that exist in a globalized economy, at the individual level we all have the opportunity to connect with and learn from each other, if we choose to take it. No matter how much our various cultures may differ (in amusing and confusing ways), we all still have much more in common as human beings than we have differences. Given that many factions in the US seem to be increasingly hostile towards immigrants and foreigners these days, this film could not come at a better time (and I hope it receives a wide audience). It correctly portrays the "bad guys" as: not the Indian workers who take American jobs, but rather the corporate executives who willfully ship those jobs overseas to boost the almighty profit margin. And even those guys are basically just doing their jobs and aren't really portrayed as "bad" (which doesn't mean that it isn't funny to watch bad things happen to them). At the end of the film nobody feels like a "loser", even those who have lost their jobs. This movie reminds us that it is sometimes possible for things to change drastically in ways that seem scary, and yet for people to learn and grow as a result, and just maybe end up better than they started.

When I was in college, one of my favorite late-night activities was to explore the steam tunnels, abandoned dormitory wings, locked towers, construction sites, and any other off-limits part of campus. By the time I graduated I had collected quite a few keys that opened various useful doors (which I passed on to my friends in lower classes, as was the tradition). "Tunneling", as we called it, was a lot of fun, somewhat forbidden and dangerous, but mostly just risky enough to feel sexy (taking a female along made for a great date). However, the actual dangers weren't too great really, and if campus security caught you, they'd probably just send you on your way with a slap on the wrist.

For some reason, it never really occurred to me that it would be possible to continue doing this sort of exploration of underground tunnels, abandoned buildings, or otherwise forbidden places after I left college. After all, in the real world, getting access is often much trickier, the dangers are often quite real, and the police (especially in the wake of 9/11) are far less forgiving of trespassers than a college rent-a-cop would be.

But as this documentary shows, it turns out that there are many of these explorers out there who are not intimidated by such risks. And when the internet came along, they began finding each other, sharing maps and photographs, organizing trips and conventions, and all other sorts of crazy things. This movie spends around a third of its time interviewing the explorers themselves (who are all quite unique individuals from all walks of life), and the rest of the movie is actually spent filming their various explorations, infiltrating everything from an abandoned mental hospital in Scotland, to a huge underground NASA rocket silo in the Everglades, to the maze of passages and crypts under Paris, to the slowly disintegrating tunnels and industrial buildings outside Minneapolis.

In short, it's pretty damn cool stuff, with many moments that kept me on the edge of my seat. (Will that cop car that just drove up notice them hiding in the bushes? Will that guy rappelling 90 feet down into a rocket silo live to tell the tale?) Most of all, this movie made me (and many other members of the audience, to judge by the Q&A session) want to get out there and do some exploring of my own. It made me remember how much I love discovering the unknown and peering into lost, forgotten spaces. Wondering who lived in that abandoned room, or who worked in that abandoned factory, and how it came to be that way. Or for that matter, exploring any place new (and possibly, forbidden). I remember the glee I got the one time I was permitted to poke around backstage briefly at Disneyland (while working on a school project). I'd love to get a behind-the-scenes tour of a vegas casino sometime (but I think that's probably unlikely).

In the meantime, it might be time to play some frisbee golf at Stanford again: always a tailor-made excuse to poke around in buildings and see what doors might be left open. "Honest Mr. Officer, I just went in there to retrieve my disc!"

This movie actually consisted of four mini-stories about different aspects of love, each happening simultaneously in different rooms of the same Los Angeles hotel.

In a lot of ways it's a difficult format for a movie, since setting up the characters and making them feel real is difficult when you only have 20-30 minutes per story. You know how when you watch a pilot of a new series it often feels a bit artificial because the writers haven't quite hit their stride and have to spend all this time explaining the setup and introducing characters? In some ways this felt like watching four half-hour pilots back to back. Of course, Quentin Tarantino or Richard Linklater can pull that sort of thing off like pros, but that's why they make the big bucks. In this case, the dialogue wasn't bad enough to make me cringe or anything, but there were a few predictable/cliched moments that felt a bit too scripted. The actors did their best and overall put in some great performances, but not all the characters really felt fully three-dimensional and believable to me.

(minor spoilers follow)

The segment that worked best in my mind was the third one (which was also the longest of the four), about a couple whose big plans for a dating milestone do not work out as either of them anticipated. It felt the most original to me, and had a few funny surprises, including a bit of gross-out humor which felt slightly out of place but still made me laugh. I also got the impression that the actors were really having fun with the story and maybe even improvising a bit. The first two segments were well acted, but the subject matter was bittersweet (involving mindless sex, relationship regrets, and infidelity), and I found myself not really liking or caring about all of the characters as much. Perhaps I'm too much of an optimist when it comes to love, so stories about people treating each other badly rub me the wrong way somewhat. The last story (about a call girl and a first-time john) actually had some good dialogue, although I found the whole premise a bit hard to swallow. At one point the girl actually says, "This isn't Pretty Woman, this is real life"; her point being that prostitution is not some romanticized fantasy. But in fact the entire episode was nothing if not a romanticized fantasy - if you can imagine the rosiest possible portrayal of prostitution (from both the man and the woman's perspective) this would be it. We're talking romance novel territory. That said, the dialogue between the two about love, breakups, and men/women in general had enough good moments that it kept me engaged. What can I say, I'm a sucker for romance I guess.

I attended three Cinequest movies this past weekend. For those out of the loop, Cinequest is an independent film festival that happens in downtown San Jose every year around this time. This is the 17th year and every year it seems to get bigger and better organized. I've been attending for the past five years or so (although I missed out on last year unfortunately).

In most cases I go into these films knowing relatively little about what I am about to see (no reviews, no trailers, only a one paragraph blurb), but I usually come out of the theater feeling like I've experienced something amazing and new. It's also interesting how much more interactive a moviegoing experience feels when at the end of the movie, the director, producer, and half the cast stands up at the front of the theater and take questions from the audience. It gives great insight into not only the motivations and artistic vision behind the film, but the whole business side of film making in general. In many cases the films are still a bit rough around the edges, but you almost always get the feeling that these films are true labors of love.

Anyway, here is a mini-review of the first film I saw:

Out of Balance

Unfortunately I was late to this film due to a combination of oversleeping, wrong turns, and going to the wrong theater, so I missed most of the first half of this movie, so I will just comment on the parts I saw. The film is about the global oil industry, but in particular, ExxonMobil Corporation. The basic message: ExxonMobil is even more money-grubbing and ethically challenged than you ever knew, even for an oil company. Other oil companies are not exactly doing good for the world, but at least many of them are putting some effort into alternative energy sources and not actively attempting to screw over the environmental movement. But ExxonMobil has spent millions funding disinformation campaigns (in the form of junk science groups) claiming that global warming doesn't actually exist. In many cases these groups were funded solely by ExxonMobil and had no other purpose other than to discredit the idea that global warming was a threat. They then made sure their handful of paid PR flunkies were given "equal time" in the media whenever global warming was discussed. And not surprisingly, when these professional debaters went up against actual scientists, it didn't matter that they had no facts on their side, since tv news media these days is all about who yells louder and claims they are right, facts be damned. They showed clips of a few of these appearances and it was pretty sickening to watch the "good guy" unable to force a word in edgewise, getting beat to a pulp by some bully spouting ridiculous falsehoods at a mile a minute. Hooray for "news"! But the biggest audience chuckle of the film came from an ExxonMobil sponsored anti-global warming television ad, in which a young minority mother expresses confusion about why she should conserve energy and exclaims: "they say we should conserve energy, but I like my air conditioning!" and "they say we shouldn't drive SUVs, but big cars are safer!" The basic tagline being that Global Warming is just too darn confusing to even think about, so let's not worry about it and just Consume, Consume, Consume! This was something I would expect to see on the Simpsons as a satire, but it was actually produced by ExxonMobil through one of its fully-funded junk science lobbying groups. Anyway, now that people are actually starting to pick up on the fact that maybe global warming is maybe happening after all, the ExxonMobil strategy has changed from outright denial to "hey, is this really such a bad thing? Besides, it's probably too late to stop it now."

Anyway, much of this movie was stuff I knew already (either from An Inconvenient Truth or elsewhere) but it was disturbing to see how large a role ExxonMobil plays in the big picture. And of course it is all paying off for them in the form of ridiculously huge profits. The director in the Q&A period after the movie urged a boycott against ExxonMobil (arguing that the only way to hurt a company that pays attention to nothing but the bottom line, is to hit them in the bottom line) and I am inclined to agree. It's not like the other oil companies are saints, but they are the lesser of (a few) evils. If ExxonMobil takes a hit (even a small one) it will make the oil industry as a whole take notice, and just maybe, try to be less greedy bastards.

more reviews to come...

The answer is, if you find the following IRC exchange to be highly amusing:

[14:29] <El_Pompo> what would be the best language to build a crawler in?
[14:29] <Emetri> jawa.

I noticed this while browsing videos the other day at Fry's:

Is it me, or does the poster/cover for this movie:



Look a hell of a lot like this "classic" from the 80's:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/11/14/woman_says_she_was_kicked_off_plane_for_breast_feeding_baby/

omg breasteses! So offensive!



(and yeah, I know it wasn't for security reasons but I thought it made for an amusing headline.)