Pocket Universe

Andy’s Rating: one notch above Really Liked It (11/13)

After buying the DVD of Sergio Leone’s classic western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, a friend commented to me, “I don’t know why you’re so excited about that movie. It’s not even that great of a movie. It’s just a spaghetti western.” But the facts don’t lie: At the time of this writing, the IMDb ranks The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as not only the greatest western of all time, but the fifth-best movie of all time. It is also on Time’s list of the 100 greatest movies of the last century, and is considered by Quentin Tarantino to be the greatest movie of all time.

I hope this article, about a cheerleader who is also a rocket scientist, inspires you in some way. It inspired me to realize that smart girls can also be smokin’ hot.

Andy’s Rating: one notch above Really Liked It (11/13)

Back in 2001, Shaolin Soccer was released, a wildly fantastical movie about a man who uses martial arts to play soccer. Written, directed, and starring Stephen Chow, it was enormously successful, and became the highest-grossing Hong Kong—made movie in Hong Kong. Shaolin Soccer was known for its almost cartoonish use of special effects, and Chow continued that tradition with his follow-up, Kung Fu Hustle, which proceeded to break the box-office records set by the previous movie.

You’ve been waiting for it for a long time, and since I am posting movie reviews more frequently now, I suppose I should finally reveal my movie rating scale. To fully explain it, let me start with a little background information.

Today Apple announced three revolutionary products: a widescreen video iPod with a touch screen, a phone, and a revolutionary internet communication device. The twist is, all of these are the same device: the iPhone. I’ll let you read all about it on the site, but basically it’s a small device running Mac OS X that has full iPod capabilities (including a CoverFlow view), a phone with a great user interface that syncs with your contacts on you computer, and a Safari web browser, Google Maps, email, and other widgets like stocks and weather. Oh, and it has a two megapixel camera built in.

It looks really, really nice, and as someone who has always been unhappy with my cell-phone user interface, I am excited about getting a device that actually has a good interface for making and receiving calls. It also fades the music automatically when a call comes in, lets you conference multiple callers together, provides non-linear access to voicemail, and gives you full access to Google Maps, including satellite views and direct dialing of found locations. (During the keynote, Steve found the nearest Starbucks, then called them and ordered 4000 lattés to go.) Add to that a full web browser, and I think I may need to switch carriers. I wonder if I can get out of my contract early.

Andy’s Rating: one notch below Really Liked It (9/13)

Back in 1998, it seemed like everyone was trying to reinvent the vampire genre, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I can’t recommend highly enough) to the BBC series Ultraviolet. In that tradition comes Blade, a story about a half-human, half-vampire who makes it his mission to hunt down vampires. While he should be a full vampire, Blade (or the Daywalker, as he is known to his enemies) keeps a partial human identity by injecting himself with a strange mixture of garlic and other elements, which keeps his darker side at bay. Meanwhile, the vampire families maintain a truce with local politicians, where they agree to keep a low profile in exchange for relative safety from attacks. But when a rogue vampire arrives with a plan to take over humanity, Blade has to intervene to stop him.…