News, and Preliminary Weekend Movie Roundup

Just an FYI: Friday was my last day on my current job. My boss didn't seem too happy about it, actually: Monday, she came to me and said that her boss had decreed that because profits were down, they needed to cut development costs for the quarter (ending this month), so he suddenly canceled the project I would have been working on through the end of July. In the email she sent around to the entire team to let them know that three of us were leaving at the end of the week, she said things like "This was unexpected. I usually like to give folks at least three to four weeks advance notice of when I will end their contract. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury this time", and "We are at a point now where every cut hurts us as a team."

I don't expect it will take me too long to find something else. I have several irons in various fires, including applying for positions both at this same company, and at the one that laid me off a year ago. I'm optimistic.

So, on to a quick review of the movie we watched earlier tonight:

Identity: Eenh. Interesting premise, not executed as well as I had hoped. I will point out that this is another case of a "twisty" suspense movie where I (literally, no exaggeration) turned to Brenda before we started watching and said, "Without having watched a frame of this film, here is my prediction of what the big twist ending is:" Yes, I got it right. Again. I had formed this prediction based on the TV trailers, and the title of the movie. What this says to me is that either I am a genius at predicting twist endings, Hollywood movies have gotten way too predictable, or Hollywood trailers have gotten way too revealing.

Without spoiling the twist for others, I will say that it would have been interesting to see it done slightly more realistically, and also to see it done by someone like David Lynch. Those are not mutually exclusive - I maintain that Eraserhead was, and remains, the most realistic depiction of a dream/nightmare ever committed to film.