My California Adventure, Day Forty and Forty-One: The Dark Mountain Lion Rises

Apple released Mac OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion) yesterday. I skipped the previous release completely because I was a little wary of the iOS-ification of the Mac platform – who wants their desktop computer turned into a giant iPhone? – but after scanning a few reviews (this is the only one you need to bother reading) I decided it was worth trying out. After all, Apple is selling the thing for $20, which as they say in the Ars review is ‘practically impulse-buy territory.’

First impressions: pretty slick. It was almost embarrassingly easy to install – one click of the ‘buy now’ button and a restart gets you to Mountain Lion land. I’ve done my fair share of OS installs and upgrades in my day, and they usually involved a lot more time, clicking, and pain than this one did. Beyond that, I love the touchpad gestures and the re-vamp of Mail; the new Messages is nice; and while I miss explicitly-defined Spaces, Mission Control seems like a decent amalgam of Spaces and Exposé from previous Mac OS versions. It definitely does have more of an iOS feel to it, right down to the grid of app icons in the Launchpad. Anyway, so far it’s been a pretty nice experience, and seems like a steal at $20, especially if you haven’t yet upgraded from Snow Leopard.

Also, while I waiting in line at the Grizzly River Run at California Adventure on Monday, I had checked ticket availability for tonight’s showing of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES…and found an open seat at the IMAX screening with the other interns. So today we stuck around long enough to get leftover dinner at work and then headed to Universal City to catch the movie.

Caution: if you haven’t seen the film, you may not want to read the next paragraph or two. They may contain spoilers.

This movie is absolutely MASSIVE. The sheer scale of it is pretty astounding, and the sweeping exterior shots taken in IMAX are almost dizzying. Having very recently watched both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I can safely say that Rises is a fitting end to the trilogy. It’s one of those films that makes the preceding ones better – you realize the full weight, seriousness, and consequences of Batman and Gordon’s decision at the end of The Dark Knight, and you appreciate the commitment and care of Alfred all the more because of what transpires.

I fully believe Michael Caine deserves a Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. He’s in about five scenes in the film, but they are all absolutely pivotal moments for Bruce Wayne. I’m feeling an entire essay coming on here, so I’ll cut myself off before I go crazy, but suffice to say that Rises probably has the best character development in any of the three films. There are plenty of silly things – Bruce teleporting from a South American prison to Gotham in a matter of hours, John Blake knowing Bruce is Batman “because of that look in his eyes,” Gotham’s entire police force getting trapped underground – but ultimately, those things were trumped by the incredible character moments, the staggering set pieces, and the fact that this was basically The Dark Knight Returns: The Movie.

If you’ve seen any of the other Batman movies, go see this one, and try really hard to see it in true IMAX. It’s pretty incredible – over seventy minutes of the film is in the larger format. Anyway, that’s enough waxing about movies for one blog post; time for bed. Tomorrow should hold more fun tasks on our group project at work.

Prepping for summer

Last week I had the amazing honor of being offered a summer job at Walt Disney Animation Studios as a pipeline TD intern. I’ll be in sunny Burbank, CA for eight weeks learning their systems and working with other interns on an as-yet-unspecified project. It’s pretty unbelievable that, after a decade of dreaming and working, I’ll finally get to experience life in a CG animation studio. I can’t wait, and I look forward to sharing some stories and experiences “from the road” with you (at least, the parts that the legal department clears).

my home for the summer

In other summer- and movie-related matters, I went to the midnight premiere of THE AVENGERS last Thursday and had a really good time. I won’t bother reviewing the film when there are many good ones out there already (this is by far my favorite), but I will say that it did an excellent job of tying together the existing Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes and making them all interesting as characters (except for Hawkeye, but he was barely in the movie). It was also really funny. A well-placed joke about Galaga might have been my favorite bit.

That other big comic-book movie (latest trailer below!) will be released when I’m in L.A. this summer, and it features over an hour of IMAX footage…I think I’ll be willing to shell out more than the $4 College Station Cinemark ticket price for that.