This Spanish-language film from Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro was a real stunner. Young Ofelia indulges in imaginative fantasy quests to escape the real-life hell around her which is the Spanish war. This film will enthrall your every sense… just close your eyes during the gory scenes (the fantasy world is far more tame than the human world). 5/5 stars.

I had heard many great things about this movie. I saw the director’s cut, which has an additional 20 minutes of footage compared to the theatrical version. Stylistically, it was dazzling, and I liked that it dealt with big philosophical questions. There were several laugh-out-loud moments and overall I really enjoyed the film. 4/5 stars.

With the exception of Dune, this was my first David Lynch film. Blue Velvet is all about contrasting the two extreme ends of the spectrum of innocence and evil. Lynch does an amazing job of illustrating this mixed-up world, and the acting is very memorable, especially Dennis Hopper. It’s great to see such an artistic movie supported by a reasonable and interesting plot. 4/5 stars.

Catch Me If You Can stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a teenage con-man and Tom Hanks as the FBI agent who pursues him. Both stars are tremendous actors and these roles really showed off their abilities. Leo plays a character who himself portrays a variety of different personas! Spielberg does a masterful job of producing and directing this movie, and all in all this is a solid, enjoyable movie! 4/5 stars.

I found a great blog post which classifies “difficult people” into various types and then tells you how you can best deal with them.

The most successful people are those who are honest and self-reflect. These categories are not black-and-white, so it would serve you well to ask yourself: if you had to classify yourself as one of these people, which one would it be? And what would you do to improve your relations with your coworkers/family/friends?

This is one of the most important self-discoveries in recent memory, and I’ve been doing quite a bit of self-discovery over the last year! I am allergic to milk.

For some reason, when I tell people I’m allergic to milk, just about everyone assumes that I mean I’m lactose intolerant. No, I mean allergic… like as in my skin gets irritated and itchy, I become extremely fatigued, my nose runs, and I get lightheaded. I’ve spent the last year starting off every day with cereal and milk and then having cheese at lunch every day as well, and I was so exhausted that I could hardly think straight for several hours of the day. How did I not realize this until recently? It’s because it’s a mild allergy and also because I was eating so much milk-derived food all the time, I didn’t realize that the way I was feeling was something I could change! It’s only now that I’m able to recognize the distinct feeling because it’s been years since I’ve been completely free of milk.

My health was getting particularly bad over the last few months so I decided to experiment by eliminating things from my diet. Wheat was not the problem. Sugar was not the problem. It was milk. In less than a week I could feel a dramatic difference. Unfortunately this means I cannot eat many of my favorite foods! Milk, buttermilk, yogurt, cheese, cream, butter, cream cheese, ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate, pizza, cookies, doughnuts, white bread, hamburger buns, hotdog buns, pancakes, waffles, sherbet, cake, custard, biscuits, muffins, most Indian food, whey, mashed potatoes, cinnamon buns, crackers, total cereals, kaiser rolls, and so on…

It is pretty awful not being able to eat all of these delicious foods, but I would gladly trade it all to feel healthy. I feel like a whole new person.

I had heard lots about this classic Kafka, so I thought I’d check it out. The story is only about 60 pages long, so it was super-fast, and it was interesting. Extremely non-traditional… the story has no build-up to a climax, rather the climax happens at the very beginning and the rest of the story winds down from there. Not an uplifting tale, more of an interesting read for the sake of experimentation. 4/5 stars.

The title is a reference to the “giant squid and whale fighting” diorama at the American Museum of Natural History. This is a very intense emotional movie about a family split in two by their father’s selfishness. This movie is brutally honest over and over again… this is a seriously messed up family, and I was shocked over and over again at the way the kids acted in reaction to the events unfolding around them. The director and writer, Noah Baumbach, based the movie on his own experiences as a child, and the depth of each character reflects this personal experience. Fantastic acting from the entire cast, too. 5/5 stars.

I am not a subscriber, but I really like the Netflix concept… so I’m glad to see they are getting on board the online video bandwagon. It makes perfect sense for them, since customers get to choose whichever method they prefer and Netflix still gets to maintain their strong brand name.

The fallout from this is that Blockbuster will be even more screwed than they already are. You can see a demo of the Netflix movies-on-demand here.

Do you think in terms of constraints (i.e. negatives) or in terms of ideals (i.e. positives)? Which one is more like “real life”?

When you have several choices, you look for ways to eliminate some. When you have few choices, do you look for reasons to accept them?

One of my favorite shows, Beauty and the Geek is back for season 3! This season’s cast has a more colorful roster of geeks… rather than purely academic boring geeks, they have a video gamer, a Star Wars band singer, and a goofy Anthro Harvard grad. The girls are hotter than ever, including a Playboy model, UFC Ring girl, and a bunch of models. It should be a great season. I especially enjoy reality shows where the goal of the show is to have contestants learn from eachother (Wife Swap, Surreal Life, Real World, etc) and this is probably the best of that kind.

Check out the official web site for all the info.

This was a fun movie about winning, losing, and family. A good honest comedy with great acting… polished and full of unique charm. The finale was hilarious! 4/5 stars.

It’s so rare that we witness something that just defies everything we’ve ever seen… that is why I had to post this link. Check out these videos below for the best of what’s on that page…

Walking on a non-newtonian liquid:

Non-newtonian liquid + subwoofer:

This will probably give you nightmares:

I figured since I’m heading into the business world, I should learn to improve my memory. Wouldn’t it be great to always remember everyone’s name? To remember to do all the things you need to do? This book was written by magician Harry Lorayne and NBA star Jerry Lucas, and proposes to have a system to help you remember just about anything. I read through the whole thing and I tried a bunch of the exercises… I think it helps! How much it helps depends on how much effort you’re willing to put into it. Nothing comes without effort, and this is no exception. When I’ve put the effort in, this system helped me remember things. His system involves picturing absurd images which are based on words which sound like the things you are trying to remember. I don’t want to give away the whole book, and you can probably find the whole thing somewhere on the Internet. The book is not really for entertainment and it is not terribly interesting, so you should think of it as a tool. I don’t even know how I can rate it because it’s not really on the same scale as the books I usually review, so I’ll just give it a 4/5.

Robert DeNiro’s first stab at directing was a great success! Matt Damon plays an honorable yet paranoid man who becomes a CIA counterintelligence operative. This is a powerful movie, and very thought-provoking. You don’t know who to trust and you don’t quite know what’s going on at all times. Great acting from everyone involved, and a very solid production overall. 5/5 stars.