Jim Goings

Here are my thoughts on two terrific movies that I’ve recently seen.

Pan’s Labyrinth
Haunting and beautiful at the same time, this fairly tale with an adult perspective was a masterpiece. The imagery ranged from subtle details to vivid themes that stick with you long after the movie is over. It wasn’t artsy-fartsy like Mirror-Mask. Rather this film remained somewhat grounded while pulling the audience into another world without losing them entirely. This is critical as this film is without a doubt adult themed with gore, torture, pain, and death mixed with a childs fantasy. It sounds strange, but it works wonderfully well and the soundtrack brings your emotions to the right place complementing the beautiful scenes perfectly. Excellent acting and an intriguing plot make the fact that the movie is entirely spoken in spanish forgettable. Normally subtitles fatigue me, but I didn’t even notice as my eyes were eating each new line as greedily as the last. 9 out of 10.

The Queen
More of a docudrama than a movie, this film showcases powerful acting with a facinating and unbiased look into the lives of the Queen and the British royal family at the time of Princess Diana’s death and the rise of Tony Blair. This film will certainly gain Oscar nominations and will likely win one or two. Helen Mirren portrays the queen wonderfully. While there isn’t a plot to speak of, the on screen events are riveting. While this is just a movie and much of the content probably isn’t accurate, this movie makes you appreciate the perspectives of the Queen and her subjects, the people of England. 8 out of 10

My sugar-mama-in-the-making made the front page of the Hillsboro Argus today along with a half-page color spread. Pretty cool. Now to just sit back and wait for those royalty checks!

It hasn’t officially snowed in Portland since January of 2003. While the latest STORM OF THE CENTURY OF THE WEEK wasn’t as rough as then, this week’s winter storm did lay down about 4 inches of snow. Apparently 4 inches is just the right amount to cause half of the metro area to not go to work. Admittedly the buses were only partially running, but the Max was running on schedule all day.

To be fair, the snow was somewhat of a surprise as most folks thought the predictions were another wolf sighting. The snow stuck however and left many commuters stuck in traffic for much longer than anticipated. I left my house at 7:50 on Tuesday morning and arrived at 9:55. My normally 35 minute journey lasted over 2 hours. I was rear-ended twice… twice! The only damage was a bent license plate, but still… twice!

I did leave work early, taking the train home and leaving my car at work. I’m glad I did as I saw a lot of crazies sliding to stop for the train crossing on my way home. Megan was kind enough to give me a lift from the station to my house, although in retrospect, the walk was nice. Everyone was playing in the snow, cars were doing 360′s in the intersections, and the everyone’s moods were so uplifted and joyous. You can complain about the cold and wet nature of snow, but all I saw were people generally happy about it. Sure, everyone was talking about how many accidents they saw and how the buses weren’t running, and that it was ridiculous to go into work, but there was still an aire of joy on everyone’s face. No amount of inconvenience or fender benders could hide the general happy nature that was on the face of everyone I encountered.

When I got home, I shed my work clothes, slapped on several layers of cotton with an outer layer of non-cotton prepared to do what all righteous dudes and dads must do. Throw snow balls at their kids and build a collosal snow man to demonstrate my supreme masculinity and reign over my domain. The kids won and when the snowman’s midsection collapsed, it never fully developed. Still, I reign supreme!

Oh yes, you can see more pics of our fun in the snow.

I’m doing lots of research on the best/easiest method of setting up site to site VPN tunnels between my friends in PDX. I think I can do it with DD-WRT using the OpenVPN server built in. However, I am concerned about the compatability of my friend’s routers as well as the CPU load on my router. I may need to purchase a seperate piece of hardware to accomplish my goal.

The planning for our vacation to Australia has officially started. I’m thinking about spending a couple of days in New Zealand since we have to stop in Auckland on our way to Melbourne. Besides, how can I pass up a chance to see the Hobbiton set?!