| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 |
| Months | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar |
| Apr | May | Jun |
| Jul | Aug | Sep |
| Oct | Nov | Dec |
Mon, 03 Jul 2006
[12:03] To brake or not to brake
I've been meaning to check/replace the brake pads on my bike for, well, quite some time now. My stopping distance has been getting gradually longer and longer and nearly ramming a taxi on the way home tonight reminded me that I needed to obtain some new ones. I stopped at Evans on the way home tonight and purchased two sets (front and back) of these. I'm not really a bike person ("knows enough to be dangerous" is the term I believe) so I dragged the bike into the shop to make sure I got the right ones and the look on the guys face when he saw my old pads said "I'm upset at the injustice being done to your rims and ex-brake pads" his vocal chords echoed the sentiment and chastised me as apparently I was long overdue for this.
I took them home and swapped them all over and once again I can stop almost instantly. I think the guy at the shop was right though, I don't think that brake pads are meant to be concave:
[Posted at: 03/07/2006 20:03]
category: /life | permalink | Comments suspended due to spamwhores
[09:32] Fearless - Rating 7/10
We went to see Fearless (aka Huo Yuan Jia) on the weekend for two reasons:
a) because it's a Jet Li movie
b) because I've been intrigued by the advertising on the buses recently stating that this was "Jet Li's last Martial Arts Movie"
I was wondering if somehow Jet Li had died and I'd managed to miss that, it seems not.
Fearless was an excellent movie on several levels:
- If you're a martial arts junkie then there are fight scenes aplenty. It had a fair chunk of wire-work, or what I assumed to be wirework, but it was pretty unobtrusive (I really hate the whole pseudo-flying/jumping that goes on in a lot of martial arts style movies these days) and there's a good mix of hand-to-hand as well as armed combat!
- If you like your movies to have a plot then, once again, you're in luck! The plot is easy enough to follow (although there are a couple of rather odd leaps through time right at the beginning) and doesn't seem to suffer from "translating the untranslatable" that impacts a lot of films with asiatic origins. The subtitles are easy to read except for a quick two-liner in the first five minutes. As an additional bonus the fight scenes are actually a an integral part of the plot rather than the plot being built as a vehicle for the fight scenes.
- It's real purty-like! The cinematography is excellent and both the action sequences and other scenes are beautifully shot and a pleasure to watch, with only one slightly cringe-worthy CGI moment, again right at the beginning.
- There's a moral to the story that you can take away at the end (although the movie doesn't end with a panning shot of everyone laughing at an inane joke).
Regarding the "Jet Li's Last Martial Arts Movie" quote, it seems that he's said all he's got to say on the subject of "martial arts" however, he will continue to make "action" and "kungfu" films! The rationale behind that:
So it looks like there're plenty more awesome movies coming up including a possible collaboration with Jackie Chan!!!Action and martial arts stories only use the form of martial arts. Kungfu represents a concept of time. You spend time practicing it, and you learn new skills. Martial arts are an overall concept, which also includes nurturing the soul.
There's more information on the Jet Li background story here and a much better review and some additional background info here.
[Posted at: 03/07/2006 17:32]
category: /reviews | permalink | Comments suspended due to spamwhores