Walking out of Transformers last night, I couldn’t decide what to say about it. The movie was a lot of fun, and the last few sections of the movie were just filled with amazing action/CG sequences, but at the same time I felt a bit underwhelmed. Bottom line: the movie is just so-so, but the experience of seeing it on the big screen outweighs the story. Definitely worth seeing, just don’t expect much from the story.

Honestly, that almost seems like a perfect summary of all Michael Bay movies. All of his movies have had horrible writing. The Rock is probably the best story among all of them, and even that movie had it’s boring/awkward moments. There are simply some awful moments in this film with the dialog.

Of course, that’s not why you’re going to see Transformers. For those of you looking for a connection with your youth, I hate to say that the new incarnation of the characters are just not even close to the original cartoons. That’s not to say that they’re not fun, but they’re a bit… wooden, if you can call 40 foot CG metal robots wooden.

For those of you looking for a great special effects movie, you’ll be happy. The final 30 minutes is pretty much the best CG/live action sequence I’ve ever seen. The live actors blend in almost perfectly with the CG characters. There was only one moment where the CG/live illusion was broken, and that was about 10 seconds. A lot of scenes look like they were written in just to provide visually cool ways of incorporating the robots into live sequences. So, the dialog sucks, the acting is good, but this is why this movie is worth seeing. You will not see another movie this summer where the computer generated characters blend in so well.

This is a milestone film for computer generated effects, and that’s why you should see this movie.

Go See It Now! Right now. If you hurry, you can still make the 10:something showing. This is easily one of the best Pixar movies in recent history. Though they haven’t really made one I don’t like, Cars and The Incredibles weren’t up to the same level as Monsters Inc or the Toy Story films. Ratatouille is one of the best Pixar films, period.

The impressive thing about this one is that unlike the last few films, this movie requires a heavy suspension of disbelief. Compared to say, Monster’s Inc, which exists in a complete fantasy world, Ratatouille is based in a more realistic world where some completely unbelievable things happen. High up on that list are that Remy, our protagonist rat, can understand English (French?) and can control his human friend by tugging on particular clumps of his hair. When we’re first introduced to the concept in the film, I couldn’t help but think of it as absurd. Normally, that’s where a film would lose me, when suspension of disbelief is broken. That didn’t happen this time because the story immediately became about the characters.

Ultimately, that’s why this movie is so awesome. The story is funny and entertaining and rich. Everything else is forgivable when you have that. There were entire stretches of the film where Heidi and I couldn’t stop snickering, giggling, and laughing along with the film. Most importantly, the movie ends on a really strong note with an awesome little twist that just makes the film.

As with all the movies I really love, I’ll leave you with a few other reviews. As always, my favorite comes from Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek, who calls the film “pure joy, a grand achievement — one of the most beautiful animated pictures ever made.” Rotten Tomatoes has this film at an almost unbelievable 95%. (Cars was a 76%, though The Incredibles hit 97%(!)).

Go see this, you’ll enjoy it!

I’m home today sitting in front of the newest addition to the toy family, a 40″ Samsung LCD HDTV that does 1080p. Now, I still haven’t found a source that can push the TV at 1080p, but this TV is as future-proof as I can get right now. Even though this TV isn’t a 50+ inch behemoth like my mom’s TV, it still commands the room it’s in.

I haven’t really used the TV enough to do a full review, but so far it’s been great. The TV is hooked up via a set-top box to Comcast’s HD Cable service, an XBox 360, and my old Series2 Tivo. So far, I’m impressed with the HD sources and the Tivo looks as you might expect an SD source to look on a TV like this.

The XBox 360 is a surprisingly good upconverting DVD player. I thought it played HD-DVD disks, but that was a mistake (btw, anyone want an HD-DVD copy of Sky Captain?). HD-DVD capability is coming this year, so maybe I’ll get a chance to try it out. I’m watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith which looks really good.

A quick note on the XBox 360: I think Microsoft may have actually built a good product here. This might be the first one since they rolled out Windows 95. I’ve played Madden in HD on this TV at 1080i and it looks gorgeous. The online play looks pretty cool, and the always on nature of XBox Live seems like a really good idea.

I’ll write more about these things later, but I need to get back to work now. The bottom line right now is that I’m really happy, especially considering that I got the TV, XBox 360, Madden 07, and extra controller from Best Buy for right about $3100 and zero interest financing for 24 months. The price on the TV was $2559 after the discounts for the XBox 360 bundle deal, Comcast HD discount, and the discount I found on BestBuy.com. Not a bad deal all around.

• Samsung’s site for the LN-S4095D.

We made our first major post-wedding purchase. We bought a dishwasher, because ours had been on its way out for awhile. Being research fanatics, we bought a subscription to Consumer Reports to research brands. After learning about some of the checklist features, we liked the LG a lot for its low water usage and lower energy usage. We also really like our LG washer and dryer. After talking to some of the salespeople at Best Buy and S.K. Lavery (a local appliance store), we were convinced about the unknown history of LG dishwashers. Funny how it didn’t bother us when we bought the washer and dryer. Ultimately, we had some gift cards for Sears, so we decided to buy from there.

When you’re looking for a dishwasher, you’ll pretty much find they’re all very similar. The major things to look out for:

• Efficiency: Water and energy usage vary a lot, so keep an eye out for these statistics.
• Stainless Steel Tub: Stainless doesn’t hold odors or stain like ceramic or other types of interiors
• Heating coils or not: The Bosch models don’t have a heating element exposed in the tub. We’ve melted a number of stirrers, Nalgene bottle caps, and other things that slip out of the bottom rack, so we dislike the exposed element.
• Adjustable top racks/utensil trays: Flexibility is the name of the game here. Some models, the Kenmores in particular, have racks that can be adjusted without removing it.
• Noise: This seems to be a big selling point but we think it’s overrated. The quietest models will cost you a bit more.

There are incidental things, too. Appearance is one place you have choices. There are stainless exteriors for those of you that want to match your Viking stove, and there are hidden controls for those of you that want to have your appliances just blend into the cabinets. You can get panels for many of the models to really blend into your cabinet finishes.

One other thing: most modern dishwashers have a grinder that chops up food. The Bosch models have a filter system that gets most food but also needs to get cleaned out.

We looked at the various options and the different came down to a Bosch or a Kenmore. Kenmore appliances are actually appliances made by other major manufacturers with Sears specific tweaks or additions, so we were actually looking at a couple of Kenmores made by Whirpool and one Kenmore Elite made by Bosch.

After finding out about the $100 rebate on delivery for buying a Kenmore Elite, we decided to get a Kenmore Elite. The two models we considered were a Kenmore Elite (#13752) made by Whirlpool (with a stainless steel interior, some water saving features — sensor wash, which Consumer Reports says may not be all that water saving) and a grinder OR the Kenmore Elite (#16302) made by Bosch with the sensor wash, a stainless interior, no heating coil inside, and the food trap/filter instead of grinder. Both had adjustable top shelves and numerous other fancy features.

After considering both, we went with the Kenmore/Bosch. We liked the no element design and the simplicity of the look. The Kenmore version of the Bosch was a bit cheaper. The adjustable top rack was also a big draw because it could be adjusted without removing the whole rack. Since we load our dishes over two or more days before running the dishwasher, this made the most sense. We’re not going adjust the height with a half-loaded top rack if we have to take it completely out.

So far, we’re pretty happy, but have found some reasons to second guess our purchase. We did our first load last night, and it does clean pretty well. One glass had some schmutz on it this AM, but overall it seemed to do a nice job of cleaning. One drawback is the drying. The dishes seemed to mainly be dry, but the whole interior of the machine was quite wet. It stayed wet, too. The manual suggests propping the door open after the cycle to help the dishes in drying, so we’re wondering if this is going to be a recurring problem. We’re worried that it might start smelling in there with water droplets on everything, stainless steel or not. We’ll write an update when we find out more.

The salesman did mention that the Bosch doesn’t have an exhaust vent (for the air inside) unlike most of the other dishwashers. Perhaps it’s more important than we realized.

Speaking of the salesman, our salesman was one of those guys who says, “I’m not pushy, because I want you to be customers for life,” but at the same time, he maybe had a bit too much info, info that wasn’t 100% accurate. Some of what he said didn’t match up with what we’d read on Consumer Reports. He also seemed to be pulling water usage quotes out of thin air.

We were pretty dissatisfied with Sears’ service. On top of the less than fully informed salesman, he assured us we would have our new dishwasher installed by Friday (we purchased on Wednesday. He said we’d get a call the next day. We didn’t. We got a call Friday afternoon after we called Sears, and delivery was set up for the following Tuesday.

– Heidi & Sujal

Last week, Heidi and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth as part of our double feature. I didn’t really know what to expect from this movie. Documentaries often have this annoying habit of either being too serious and thus preachy or too entertaining (often masquerading as being “accessible”) and thus too light or even misleading. When I heard about Truth, I was worried it would fall on the preachy side. Even more concerning, when I found out that Al Gore’s life forms a major part of the story, I was concerned that it would be sappy and too much to handle. That, and well, two hours of Al Gore and two hours of a Keynote presentation… how much fun could that be? When the mostly positive reviews started coming out, we decided to go give it a shot. I’m happy we did.

The movie is built around a presentation Al Gore has been giving for years (even before he became a Senator) on global warming and the evidence of an impending climate crisis. The presentation has gone through different versions over the years, of course. The version shown in the film is a modern slideshow built on Keynote. Much of the movie, indeed most of the best sequences, are simply of Gore doing the presentation in front of a studio audience. Between sections of the presentation, we’re treated to back story about how Gore became aware of this issue, what he’s done over his political career to help improve policy around global warming and climate issues, and other personal stories that are relevant to the film.

These segments are how the filmmaker keeps the movie from being “Two Cameras and a Slideshow.” In general, they are deftly woven into the film and provide the transitions between different topics. Too often, however, a monologue or narration by Al Gore is simply played over a really tight shot of his face lit by the glow of his Powerbook and Keynote. He’s not a bad looking guy but I really don’t want to be that close to him (or anyone, really).

In general, though, the stories about Gore are not really about him. A story about the Gore farm becomes an allegory about how humans change habits. The story about his political efforts is about how Congress deals with long term warnings. My fears ended up generally unfounded.

Even better, though, is that very little discussion of the current administration or partisanship in general comes into the film. Short of a few jokes and a discussion about Kyoto, there are few mentions of the Bush administration. Katrina, while held up as an example of the types of disasters we can expect if warming continues unabated, doesn’t become a polemic against Bush’s inaction. As Gore himself says in the movie, this isn’t about politics and the film stays true to that.

The movie also doesn’t really try to scare the audience with the scenarios presented. That’s not to say we’re not shown worst case scenarios, including the ocean current theory butchered in Day After Tomorrow. They’re just not presented in the Dateline/11 o’clock news way, where everything is soooooo very scary. The director doesn’t want you to be afraid. He wants you to act.

It’s this lucid discussion and sensible presentation of the science that makes the film so powerful. You will end up concerned, but in a thoughtful way. This is the first time I’ve watched a film or TV special about global warming where I walked away learning something while also believing there’s still time to do relatively simple things to curb the overall effect.

This is my favorite part of this movie, by the way. I love that the movie spends a significant amount of time talking about what you can do to improve your energy usage and reduce your output of greenhouse gases. The most interesting slide is the one where Gore shows how employing existing technologies can reduce global output of CO2 to 1970 levels. Best of all, none of these involve everyone switching to electric cars or something else ridiculous. Increasing fuel efficiency, replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, and improving home insulation all have far greater impacts than I would’ve expected. Granted, some of the steps listed require political action and legislative help, so they’re not all possible unless Congress and both parties take this issue more seriously.

I recommend seeing this movie. It’s worth it and is a far better documentary about a politically charged issue than any I’ve seen. If you’re interested in taking action to reduce your own impact on climate change, the film’s website lists many ways you can help reduce your own carbon footprint. We’re taking some of those steps today because of this film.

Rating

An Inconvenient Truth:

Other Reviews

• RealClimate.org’s review, which includes errors in the science
• Salon.com review by Andrew O’Hehir
• Rotten Tomatoes list of reviews
• Google’s review page