New and exciting

I have a sore throat, but so far without the usual sickness that would go along with it. Perhaps it is an experimental bioengineered retrovirus released on Austin to test for potential uses as a weapon. Or maybe I just have a sore throat.

We bought Rachel a blue iPod mini yesterday, continuing the recent Apple orgy around here. Despite being such a future-phile and gadget geek, I am still a bit amazed that something so small can hold pretty much every album either of us would actually listen to, if not every that we own. Just wait for the future-shock when holographic "Library of Congress in a sugar cube" storage comes around.

I finally saw two of last year's sci-fi movies I had missed, Alien Vs. Predator and I, Robot. AVP was kinda fun, but I was a little disappointed. There was actually a lot less alien and/or predator on screen than I would have liked to see, though I think director Paul W. S. Anderson did a pretty good job with what was there. He really captured the two species in the way I always imagined them, both visually and behaviorally. Now if only he had written a better plot with better dialogue.

I, Robot was a lot better than I expected. It wasn't particularly deep on a philisophical level, but at least all of the major philosophical questions were asked if not discussed. I am not really a huge Asimov fan - I think he is probably the most important science fiction writer of the twentieth century (and hence, of all time) but I don't really enjoy reading his stuff. Perhaps because of this, I have never read any of his robot stories, and thus could not be disappointed that the film bore little resemblance to them. What it achieved was a terrifically entertaining action plot with enough depth to make the viewer think, at least a little. And the visual effects were outstanding, especially when combined with the "virtual camera" during the final fight sequence at VIKI's core. The swooping and spinning camera angles were really great to watch. Ultimately, the fact that the movie did touch on key issues in personhood and technology makes it one of few "sci-fi" movies that is actually "science fiction" rather than action/horror/romance/fantasy with spaceships and ray guns.

entertainment, movies, personal