Pikmin 2

Pikmin 2 came out today for the Nintendo Gamecube, and I think I won't be seeing my wife for about a month or so... ;-)

We're both huge fans of the original game, her more so, and initial reactions range from "they're so cute!!" to "I don't care much for the Pikmin humming as they walk." As for me, they game looks great, and I can't wait to take a crack at it sometime tomorrow. I do think the music isn't as good as the first.

Airtime

It aired!

That is, a wrestling event I shot, edited and produced was broadcast on local cable TV. The 3-1/2 minute segment aired on my friend's cable-tv show last night, and from the looks of things, I guess it turned out fine!

Earlier today I helped shoot some intros & outros for a "best-of" compilation show since it's rerun time for my friend's show on OC16. I was once again "boom operator" on the shoot, and also recorded some voiceover parts for a few promo spots. Tune in this Sunday @ 7:30pm on OC16 for the "Season 1 Recap" show (which might include bits and pieces of my aforementioned wrestling video segment).

Hawaiian D**k and Wrassling!

Went with some friends to a few comic book shops a couple of days ago and saw that the new Hawaiian Dick comic is out. I read the comic's first story arc last year, and thought it was a well written and beautifully drawn comic. The new story arc, "The Last Resort," kind of starts off with a whimper instead of a bang, and while the artwork is still gorgeous, something's lacking in the story department this time around. Guess I'll have to wait and see how the second part goes.

Since Hawaii seems to be on the nation's brain these days (what with a bunch of network dramas currently or soon-to-be on TV, Hawaii 5-0 reruns airing on the Hallmark channel, and the release of Magnum PI's first season on DVD next week), I figure I'd add more info and jump along for the ride: just click on the Hawaiian Dick website above and find out about New Line Cinema optioning the comic with Johnny Knoxville tentatively set to star as the titular character (that's street talk for "private investigator" pal).

Anyway, a friendly reminder that tonight, my wrestling video segment airs! OC16 @ 7:30pm. See you there.

Stick to what you know

Yesterday we had lunch at one of my favorite plate lunch places, Spot's Inn. It's on Dillingham Blvd. where an old Diner's restaurant used to be. One of the things Spot's is famous for is their Teriyaki Garlic Chicken, probably my favorite dish there. But I felt adventurous and ordered something different. Another friend suggested I try the broasted chicken, so I got the Mega Plate, a combination of broasted chicken, teriyaki pork, and hamburger steak. While it all tasted good (and made me full beyond belief), I think I'll be sticking to my usual next time.

Also, on Thursday I produced my first of two spec news pieces for Hawaii Public Radio, and it turned out pretty good. I'm a bit rusty on the whole voice thing (it's been a couple of months since I did any actual voicework), so I have to work more on my "public radio" delivery. Let me tell you that it's vastly different than that of commercial radio.

Anyway, the news director isn't sure when she's going to run the story, considering I'm not actually on the news staff and such. But she thinks it's good enough to run and good for the community (my story talks about a Hawaiian quilt exhibit that's currently on display at the Mission Houses Museum). So I'm hoping it'll run sometime next week. Maybe I'll even find the time to post it here for your listening pleasure.

It's a go!

Well, I'm excited to share with you my first broadcast video production piece. It's that wrestling thing I shot about a month ago, and it'll finally air on my friend's OC16 cable show this Sunday at 7:30pm. So tune in, videotape it, TiVo it, whatever, and enjoy!

A little more background on the segment: I used my own consumer camcorder, an almost 4-year-old Sony Digital-8 model with its own on-board mic so... let's just say I'm not proud of the overall "technical" aspects of the piece (if I had my druthers - and the money - it'd be shot with the Panasonic AG-DVX-100A and an external microphone). What I am proud of is the actual "production" of the thing: I shot all of the footage, edited the whole segment, drew up all of the graphics, and composed the bits of music throughout. I'm pretty happy with, especially considering this was the first time I jumped into Apple's Final Cut Pro program whole hog after a few years using iMovie.

After this Sunday, my friend's show will go into reruns, so my next project is to re-jigger some of the commercials of the past season (about 13 shows). I won't be doing any actual videotaping, but along with the aforementioned re-editing and re-ordering of the commercial breaks (due to sponsor changes and the like), I might edit and produce a few brand-new :30 promos.

Random stuff

On the right, you have a nice, fuzzy picture of me and my wife Jessica (well, at least the upper part of her face). The picture behind the "ry-blog" title bar above is of the S.King & Bishop Street intersection taken with my Lomo camera on a random morning this past April.

And I hope to add some links and stuff on the navigation bar on the right when I figure out the code and such.

"He failed the snatch, so he's on to the clean and jerk."

I dropped off Jessica at work, then read the morning paper and had the morning coffee at a Starbucks.

Come 11am, I picked up my friend from the airport who's in town for a nice relaxing vacation, and we head into the downtown area to run some errands. He was feeling a wee bit nostalgic (he used to work less than a block where I used to work downtown) and ate at a supposedly famous (in downtown circles at least) eatery, Mr. Frypan, on Alakea St. I've probably passed the place a million times during lunch time in the past, and somehow I've never gathered enough courage to actually go in there. But my friend said he used to eat there more times than he cared to admit, so in we went. I had the chicken katsu curry plate with rice and it was delicious.

My out-of-town friend was going to stay with another friend of ours, so after dropping him off at my other friend's place, I headed over to Hawaii Public Radio to meet with the news director so we could go over my news piece (a draft of which I had finished just last night).

I spent a good three hours there at the station as the news director helped ply my gibberish into something remotely listenable, and her immense help and expertise yielded what I thought was a halfway decent story. It's about 90% done, so the next step is to voice my parts sometime tomorrow morning and put the piece together and have an actual radio news story complete for broadcast (hopefully).

I got done at public radio just in time to pick Jessica up from work, and we ended up hanging out at my friend's house (where my out-of-town friend is staying) until a few of our other friends converged there a little later so we could all grab a bite to eat. We ended up eating at a nearby Zippy's, got some foodstuffs and desert at a Safeway afterwards, and went back to my friend's house to watch some of the Olympics on TV. At some point I dozed off, only to be rudely awaken to one of my friends yelling, "Wow! It's a 200-pound snatch!" Of course, something that loud and outrageous will catch anybody's attention (even one in my napping state) so as I awoke, I wondered "What the heck is he talking about?"

I realized my friends were still watching the Olympics. It turned out that the heavyweight weightlifting competition was on and that there are two different techniques in the event: the "snatch" and the "clean and jerk." My friend was simply remarking at the weight of a certain weightlifter's "snatch" as he revelled in the statement's double meaning. And I swear, one of the announcers actually said the title of this post. To which another friend slyly remarked: "That explains my college years."

Finally, here's something fun: try typing in "snatch" in the search field found atop the nbcolympics.com website. The result? A page that starts off with: "You've entered a search item that is likely to contain adult content..."

Burning the midnight oil

I'm writing/posting this while doing the second of two overnight shifts filling in for a vacationing co-worker.

Along with doing three overnight shifts at public radio (my usual Friday overnight at the end of the week and the aforementioned two extra Monday and Tuesday shifts), I have an interview in the news department at one of the local tv stations in town later today. Actually, it'll be my second interview with them, so hopefully they'll have something for me this time around.

Speaking of news, I'm still at work on my public radio news piece. I had gathered three on-mic interviews last week, and I'm about 1/3 done listening to my raw tape. I haven't done this kind of thing (that is, news reporting/writing) in about eight years when I was a news intern here at Hawaii Public Radio, and I'm having a little trouble getting the "through line" or the "hook" of telling this story, one concerning a museum exhibit. I don't know, maybe I'm thinking way too hard on this piece. Oh well. I've got some time until the end of the shift to continue working on it some more.

And then I have a friend coming in from out of town on Wednesday. He'll be in for about a week for some vacation time, so there's more fun in store...

Fun in the sun

Well, we're back from some relaxing family time at a north shore resort courtesy of Jessica's generous parents. Managed to get some sun (and that's saying a lot since I'm not a beach person and the last time I sunbathed was about a couple of years ago at Hanauma Bay) and some water time (again, see above).

Jessica, her parents and I even got to go on a 3-4 mile hike around the resort grounds, which wound its way around a surrounding golf course and the beach. The day was hot and we were still kind of full from the breakfast buffet, but the hike was very enjoyable with some breathtaking views of the north shore. Plus, the exercise was good.

On Saturday night, we ate at Cholo's in the North Shore Marketplace, an excellent Mexican restaurant with great atmosphere. Jessica had a chile relleno and a tamale while I had an enchilada and a tamale. Very tasty.

Other notes: Jessica, her younger sister and I played a single game of Scrabble. Jessica won. Then later, me, Jessica, her older sister and older sister's husband played two rounds of the card game "Hearts." I won the first and Jessica's brother-in-law won the second. And finally, our 5-month-old niece was, for the most part, all smiles and giggles.

Until next week...

I interviewed the curator of the Mission Houses Museum earlier this morning and it went well. This will be for the news piece I'm working on at Hawaii Public Radio. I listened to the playback and while most of the stuff I got is good, I might need to set a follow-up interview to fill in some of the gaps or help clarify some points that were brought up in our talk. Later on tonight I'll be interviewing a guest lecturer at the museum and maybe get some other experts on tape as well.

Then right after the lecture I'm off to the north shore! I'll be joining Jessica's family for a weekend getaway of fun and relaxation.

While I haven't been exactly posting everyday here, I have been writing and starting a post daily since this blog's new incarnation. It's my form of mental exercise and creative release in these last few months since quitting my job, and it's actually sort of fun to just... write. So it's going to be a little odd in the next few days since I'm leaving the laptop at home: there'll be no new posts until Monday (or maybe Sunday night). The daily chain has been broken!

Then upon our return come Sunday afternoon/evening I'm right back in the fray at Hawaii Public Radio where I'll be filling in for the overnight guy who's going on vacation. I'm set to do two overnight shifts Monday and Tuesday morning for him. Whew!

Anyway, have a good weekend...

Cook your own Japanese food, dagnambit!

Had lunch with a former co-worker today and managed to catch up with him and get the scoops on stuff at the old workplace.

Ran some errands after lunch and then later in the afternoon had dinner at Gyu-kaku with Jessica, her sisters, her cousin, and a friend. It's this cool Japanese restaurant on Kapiolani Boulevard where you basically gather around a table with a built-in grill and cook your own food. I guess gyu-kaku is to Japanese as yakiniku is to Korean. Or not? I don't know. But the only other place I know where you cook your own food is the Yakiniku Camelia restaurants in McCully and University, and their cuisine is Korean.

But yeah, everything at Gyu-kaku was excellent, especially the Japanese ice cream pancake desert. Yum!

Tomorrow's pretty busy: an interview to conduct tomorrow morning at the Mission Houses Museum, then lunch with a co-worker at public radio. Then back home to clean things up and get ready for our weekend getaway with Jessica and her family. At 7pm, there's a guest lecturer I'll also need to interview for my news piece at the Mission Houses Museum, then it's a nice long drive up to the north shore to start the weekend.

Gearing Up

It's gearing up to be pretty busy in the next few days and extending on to next week. I was having a bit of trouble getting started with my first news story over at Hawaii Public Radio (this will be the first of two spec stories that'll hopefully land me a regular gig on the station's Arts & Cultural Events beat), so I briefly met with the news director shortly after lunch today. She gave me a couple of leads, so I'm now set on getting my initial interviews lined up the next few days and attending an event this Thursday night at the Mission Houses Museum in downtown.

Also earlier today I met with my friend who has the cable-tv show. I got my next assignment from him: editing a short segment on a local musician (currently living on the mainland because he's going to school there) who apparently shot his own video footage himself. The tape came earlier this week, so my job now is to review the footage and see if there's a do-able piece that's entertaining and worth telling a story. As for my wrestling segment, don't worry! It's going to air either this weekend or next. You'll know when I know.

But apart from those two things keeping me busy (but alas, not yet making me money), me, Jessica and her family will be taking a nice little getaway to a nice resort up in the north shore area this weekend. I was supposed to go up with the family Thursday afternoon, but the event at the Mission Houses Museum that I'll be covering starts at 7pm. So my getaway weekend will start just a little later than planned as I head on up to the north shore after the museum event gets done.

KPOI is dead... long live KPOI

Bill O'Reilly felled "The Rock."

Well, not exactly.

According to this morning's Advertiser, Salem Media of Hawaii bought two FM frequencies (97.5, formerly KPOI – The Rock You Live On, and 99.5, formerly Bob-FM) from Visionary Related Entertainment of Maui. The most drastic change Visionary will make is to turn KPOI into KHNR, an all-talk/news FM station, a first for Hawaii. And controversial talk show host O'Reilly is on KHNR.

KPOI has been a fixture in the islands, ever since the infamous "Poi Boys" from the late 50's to the "98 Rock" days and so forth. This all could be temporary: the Advertiser says Visionary still owns the KPOI call letters, so someday soon, the rock shall rise from its ashes.

But I have to admit I didn't like the "modern rock" direction KPOI has been taking in the last few years. You can only take so much Creed-lite crap and whiny emo shit for so long before wanting to smash the radio buttons and bring on the oldies.

This morning, I listened a little to KHNR. Like I said, Hawaii has never had an FM talk radio-formatted station, and admittedly, it was odd hearing all those mainland talk radio commercials on the FM dial. I used to work at KGU AM760 about eight years ago, and I heard a lot of the same advertisers on KHNR that I remembered from the KGU days.

One thing I'd like to comment regarding the KHNR morning show: is it me or is the ratio of commercials to actual news something like 2-1?

Update: Okay, so KPOI is back, this time at 105.9 FM, formerly The Big Kahuna. Now it's "KPOI – The Big Kahuna" on 105.9 FM. But the new KPOI will not have a modern rock format, it'll be a classic rock one. At least that's what the Advertiser says here. Confused yet?

Swap Meet, Pearlridge, and Waikele

You know you're old school when you call the two different parts of Pearlridge Mall "Phase I & Phase II" instead of "Uptown & Downtown." For me, I prefer the old school way because "up and downtown" sounds so, I don't know... elitist or something. Plus, "Downtown" kinda sounds too ghetto.

Anyway, Jessica, her sister Jacks, and her cousin Ann, and I went to the old Kam Drive-In Super Swap Meet in Aiea this morning. Since we're talking about distinctions, you could say the Kam Super Swap Meet is the "Downtown" to Aloha Stadium Swap Meet's "Uptown." One is definitely more run-down than the other, but that doesn't make it a bad thing. Matter of fact, I find the stuff at the Kam Super Swap Meet more funky, more cool and hip; there are also a lot of good deals to be had. It's like a huge, glorified outdoor community garage sale, and everything is up for grabs, even Coach knock-off "Goach" bags (which the girls did not buy, thank you very much).

After the Swap Meet, we went to Anna Miller's to eat breakfast. Then off we went to Pearlridge Mall (the Uptown side, if you will), and before heading to the Downtown side, some tough unseen force prevented us from entering the downtown mall doors. For some reason, the words "Waikele Factory Outlet" crossed all of the girls' mouths, and I was dragged along on a whirlwind shopping frenzy that landed us way out west in Waikele.

While it seemed from the above that I was cast as the miserable doomed male in the gaggle of shopping-hungry gals, that's not true dear reader. I totally didn't mind tagging along with them as they shopped; I liked their company. I just managed to do my own thing as well: I picked up a few magazines and hooked up with the girls mid-way through the mall. As they continued to shop, I sat outside on one of the numerous benches made for patient males such as I, watched their bags and read my magazines. And at Waikele, I left them to their own devices entirely. I simply went to the nearby Borders and browsed the books and music to my heart's content. Then I shlepped on over to the Starbucks right next to the Borders and had a cup of coffee, reading more of my magazines until the girls were done.

The shopping day ended when we all converged for some sushi at the newly-opened Genki Sushi at Waikele. We intended to have a simple snack, but I guess we were all worn out from all of the shopping: we ate pretty much a full meal.

Ala Moana & hangin' with the parentals

Last night I did my once a week overnight shift at the public radio station, and got home around 9am. Slept till about 12:30 in the afternoon.

Then Jessica and I went to Ala Moana to get some lunch at the food court, do some snoopin' around, and get Jessica some new glasses. She said it's been years since she last got a new pair, and I have to say this new pair I helped her pick out were pretty sweet. They'll be ready for pickup tomorrow.

After Ala Moana, we headed to my parents' house and hung out there to eat dinner and watch the Olympics on my parents' insanely big-screen tv.

Tomorrow we're going to check out the Kam Super Swap Meet at the old Kam Drive-In and have breakfast at Anna Millers.

Busy Day

I was out of the house the whole day yesterday; I left at about 8:30 to take Jessica to a doctor's appointment. While waiting for her to get done, I hung around the hospital's cafeteria where I had some coffee and a pastry, and read the paper and some magazines.

After Jessica's appointment, I dropped her off at work and went over to Mel Cabang's house as part of the crew shooting a segment for my friend's cable-tv show. The shoot went well; Mel is a very funny and demanding guy, but as it turns out, he and his girlfriend are one of the nicest people around. I was "boom guy" for the shoot, that is, holding the microphone attached to a long, telescopic pole in order to get the subject's voices clearly without handheld or lavalier mics.

Then after a short after-shoot break, I grabbed a quick late lunch and did a shift at the public radio station until midnight. The guy who normally does the shift had a family emergency, so since I'm still trying to get myself familiar with all of the station's equipment, I figured this would be a good opportunity to get some extra money and get up to speed.

In any case, it was a long day yesterday: I didn't set foot in the house at all until I got home after 12:30am (the shift was from 6pm - midnight).

The places that stay with you

Filling in for someone at Hawaii Public Radio tonight. Boy, the place has changed a bit since I had my Jazz show there about two years ago.

It's funny how people and places drift in and out of a person's life. Take for example HPR: I was first hired there in early 1995. Since then, I've been a board operator/engineer for every possible shift in the operations department, a news reporter, a producer of live and canned on-air programming, and an on-air host of a jazz show. All in the space of about nine years - of course spread out within that time. There was a period, between mid-'97 to early-2000, when I didn't even set foot in the station because I was working full-time at another radio station (which I recently left).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are certain places you never get out of your system, for good and bad. And HPR is one of those good places that, for the past decade, has lingered supportively in the background of my life. Who knows - maybe my time back at HPR may not last long if I find another full-time gig in the near future, but it's comforting to know there'll always be something for me at that place.

Various random thoughts...

Got a video shoot tomorrow: it's an interview with local comedian Mel Cabang. Ever since I was a kid, I liked him, and after seeing him perform at the Hawaiian 105 KINE Luau a few years ago, I still like him. He comes across as a loose cannon, like you don't know what little thing will set him off on some random funny tangent. He's unpredictable and edgy.

Moving on... I have a friend named Eddy, but what about A Girl Called Eddy? It's a new album from British singer Erin Moran. Yeah, she shares the same name as the actress who loves Chachi – that's probably why she performs under the name "A Girl Called Eddy" to save on the Happy Days cracks. Anyway, imagine Aimee Mann and Dusty Springfield co-writing songs with Burt Bacharach and releasing that collaboration in the winter of 1968 and you pretty much get an idea of what Ms. Moran's full-length debut sounds like. Highly recommended.

(Here's a link to the album at the iTunes Music Store).

Opportunities

Both interviews went pretty well today. If I'm fortunate enough and the timing's right, in about a month I'll have a full-time news-related gig on TV, a part-time/fill-in position at the local public radio station's operations department, a once a week news feature on the aforementioned public radio station, and finally some video camerawork/editing for a local cable-tv show.

Whew!

Of course, the majority of the above might also not happen. But that's just the pessimist in me talking out loud.

Yeah, it seems like a lot, but I have to keep my options open. Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin... I don't know. Like I said, some of those opportunities may not work out but at least I'm trying to keep busy, and all of the above have something to do with things that interest me, whether it be something journalism or video-related.

Approvals, more job interviews, and another birthday.

Got the video sequence I've been editing for the past week approved. It's a 3-minute segment on the wrestling event I helped shoot at the Blaisdell Center that'll air on my friend's cable-tv show in the next week or two, so hopefully I'll get to do more editing for his show. Working with Final Cut Pro is very, very cool, and the more I work with it, the more I enjoy cutting things together and seeing the results.

Busy day tomorrow: got two job interviews (both news related, one in radio and one in TV), a bunch of errands to do, and dinner to help cook.

And last but not least: a hearty "Happy Birthday" to my little cousin Jaenel who turned 1 today. Along with my baby niece Lilinoe, these two little girls are the most adorable babies on the face of the Earth, I kid you not.

B-day Party

Went to a former co-worker's party last night; it was his daughter's first birthday. The sad thing is that she suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and the lifespan of one afflicted with the disease is pretty low. But she looked radiant, happy, and beautiful at her party, managing some nice pretty smiles and even a few hand waves.

Baby Ava: here's to more happy birthdays.

iPod Song Ratings & iMix

I'm currently on this ratings kick with my iPod, where I use the ratings feature to rate the 2100+ songs directly from my iPod (and the 900+ songs on my iPod mini as well).

One-star songs are songs I want to delete from the iPod upon its next connection to iTunes. Two-star songs are guilty pleasures and also are songs Jessica doesn't care for (however, they're songs I want to keep on the iPod for myself, like Steely Dan, Lenny Kravitz, and other non-Jessica-friendly artists). The 3-5 starred songs are self-explanatory, with 5 stars being all-time favorites.

Speaking of iTunes, if you use the program often and are acquainted with the iTunes Music Store, check out the first iMix I compiled. It's an iMix version of an "r&jmj," or "Ryan & Jessica's Music Journal," a compilation of songs we both dig that we share with friends every once in a while. Enjoy!

The Editing, P.A., and Public Radio gigs... oh, and Stitches too

Looks like my first video editing assignment is almost done, a 2-3 minute bit on the wrestling footage I helped my friend videotape a couple of weeks ago. It's still pending approval, but I'm happy with it. Hopefully it'll run in my friend's show next week, so I'll keep you all posted on showtimes and whatnot.

I got a call earlier this morning from the television people and I didn't get the P.A. gig. The gal doing the hiring said that it was a tough choice; she said the interview went very well, but I didn't make the cut. She did say that she'll keep me in the "active" list, so if anything changes in the next few weeks, I'll be up for a spot in the production.

As for the other opportunities at the public radio station: it looks like I'll be doing an overnight shift once a week in the operations department, making sure the stations are running in tip-top shape. As for the other opportunity in a different department at the public radio station, I have a meeting set up next week Tuesday concerning that. Who knows, maybe you'll hear me on the air again, and this time, not on commercials!

Finally, I got my stitches out. I was expecting some minor pain, but I didn't feel a thing when the doc removed the three stitches from my foot. He said everything looked fine, but advised that I should tape my two small toes together to prevent any accidental opening of the wound. Yummy!

When It Rains...

Earlier this afternoon I was interviewed for a production assistant position on one of the network television shows that's shooting in town. I went to the Hawaii Film Studio and met with a couple of nice production associates, and they said they'd call me early next week to see if I get one of the two currently open P.A. positions on the show.

After the interview, while having a cup of coffee at a nearby Starbucks, I got a call from a friend I used to work with who's now over at Hawaii Public Radio. I was actually going to call him either next week or the following week to see if there were any openings there, a place I used to work at off and on over the last 10 years. Coincidentally, he had something part time if I was interested, and after catching up with each other, he told me to think about it and give him an answer tomorrow morning.

We said our goodbyes, and about fifteen minutes later, he called back again telling me there might be another opportunity – in a different department and in addition to the one he just called me about – for me over there. He told me to call him tomorrow with my answer to the first opportunity, and he'll tell me more info about the second one.

Supremacy

Caught The Bourne Supremacy Monday night and enjoyed it. Very lean and mean with an amazing car chase at the end. Excellent direction by Paul Greengrass kept the story moving at a tight clip, with striking photography, gritty handheld camera work, and snappy editing.

On the job front, applied for a bunch of them earlier in the day; hopefully I'll get a bite later this week.

More Editing Tools With Blogger

Safari isn't showing the WYSIWYG palettes that Blogger had recently implemented a few weeks ago, so last week I downloaded the latest version of Firefox since Blogger's documentation says Firefox supports the new blogging functions.

Now I'm currently using Firefox to post to this blog, and my initial impression is that it's nice and speedy with a clean interface. I'm still using Safari for regular web surfing though.

Watching The Village

The Village isn't as bad as some critics say it is. Yeah, there's the patented Shyamalan twist somewhere in there. Yeah, there's a lot of palpable atmospheric tension trying to figure out what kind of monsters lie beyond the said village's boundaries. And yeah, there are a lot of refreshingly long takes of hushed conversations about "the things we do not speak of..."

Don't worry, I'm not going to reveal anything. But people: you shouldn't go into a movie such as The Village and concentrate solely on the film's "twist."

As a matter of fact, the point isn't just the "twist." It's the story and the storytelling that matter. What's the punchline without the setup? The spike without the set?

Of course, one kind of goes into a Shyamalan movie to get entertained by some kind of con game, so maybe he should get a different shtick and tell a "normal" story. But I thought The Village was a well-acted and well-crafted drama, not horror movie or thriller per se (although there are a few thrills thrown in). And yes, I'll admit that Shyamalan's "punchline" or "spike" in this case is a little weak, but it's certainly not a deal breaker.

Underneath its surface twists and improbabilities lie a haunting and riveting allegory on love and fear, and how both are perceived by different people. If you like Shyamalan's movies, you'll probably like The Village. It's certainly not one of his best, but is unique among this summer's blockbusters.

Godfather

I've been watching The Godfather Trilogy on and off over the last week. I just finished Part II this morning, and I must say that few, if any, filmmakers can top Francis Ford Coppola's mastery of pace, editing, and storytelling evident in the first two volumes of his gangster saga.

Sadly, not even Coppola himself can match his peak career year of 1974 when he released both Part II and The Conversation, starring Gene Hackman. Apocalypse Now is okay but kind of overrated (instead, check out the riveting documentary on the making of Coppola's war drama, Hearts of Darkness) and the less we say about Jack, the better.