Posted: February 25th, 2008 | Author:admin | Filed under:movie | Comments Off
Tonight I went to a screening of Grizzly Man, a film by Werner Herzog, about a man who went into the wilderness of Alaska for 13 summers in a row to live with the grizzly bears. It was a fantastic look at one man’s issues with society and himself played out as he lived alone with a number of wild bears. The story itself was fascinating and the storytelling was superb. The highlight was the Q&A afterwards with the filmmaker.
I saw the most amazing movie tonight about a very sensitive issue, abortion. Not just abortion, but two girls’ struggle to get an illegal abortion in Communist-era Romania circa 1987. It has to be one of the most compelling movies I’ve seen in a long time. First of all, the film quality was amazing. The director mentions a special chemical process they used to de-saturate the film giving it an amazing texture that completely lacked bright colors, and yet the blues, greens, and reds were especially detailed. It really emphasized the drab nature of the whole endeavor.
Another interesting aspect was the scene duration. There were entire sections of the film shot entirely from one angle in one take. It made sitting in the theatre feel as if you were a silent observer quietly watching the story unfold. The lack of music also added an air of discomfort. The long pauses with no dialog and no music certainly raised the tension in the room.
Posted: December 23rd, 2007 | Author:admin | Filed under:50StateRide | Comments Off
I thought that the southern most point in Key West would be as far south as I would get in the US for a long time. It turns out the southern most point in all of the US is on the Big Island of Hawaii. I made it there for sunset which was one of the best I’ve seen. There was a low layer of clouds that reflected the red sun beams as the sun dropped below the horizon.
I owe a big thanks to Kevin and Rebecca, my wonderful hosts here on the Big Island. Kevin let my borrow his R1200GS and gave me the best tour you could imagine. In the past 3 days I’ve driven 830 miles, without any Interstate (there’s not one on this island).
Day 1: Kevin and I took the southern road to Hilo stopping in Volcanoes National Park to walk through a lava tube (think lava cave). We drove the amazing Chain of Craters road. In Hilo, we ate lunch at a local favorite Ken’s House of Pancakes. We drove back to the leeward side of the island on the Saddle road which passes between the two giant volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Even though it was foggy and rainy on the windward side, we had an amazing ride. This is one of the best motorcycling roads I’ve ridden. It has lots of twists and turns, beautiful scenery, and not much traffic. These two enormous volcanoes aren’t shaped like the perfect cones I remembered from 8th grade science (the volcano that Rett and I built was bright blue and blacklight reactive, way cooler than the drab brown). They are instead gentle sloping giants, that measured from the sea floor to the top are the tallest mountains in the world. We cruised back through some lava floes and big open spaces on the high road.
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