This just in! Money circulating in DC found to have highest amounts of cocaine contamination. Foggy Bottom lives up to its name.

Amassing articles on health care, including publicly cited ones. Look forward to attending town hall and getting informed by screaming.

Doing something outrageous this month: ditching Eclipse/VS in favor of vanilla editors and cmdline tools. Empowering, educational, fun!

At Microsoft Portland attending .NET user group meeting. On the docket : Workflow Foundation 4. Interop is your friend

Hacking on my new Retaggr page and “virtual” biz card for upcoming job hunt. Support for lots of social networks, tho no domain like chi.mp.

A review of The Hidden (1987)

You left an angry partner for dead on Altair...

You know those times in your life when you are talking to someone (or thinking about something) and you experience a fleeting moment of clarity, when you have encountered some truth or conclusion that pierces the heart of the matter in such a way as to illuminate the entire enterprise?

Such a time happened to me in high school, when a classmate and I were discussing criteria on which to rate films. After much back-and-forth, we discovered two important questions which any critic must ask: What did the filmmaker try to do? With that goal in mind, did they achieve it?

It is within this context that I wish to review a film I saw over the weekend: The Hidden (1987). Opening with an exciting car chase that ends in a hail of bullets, we learn of a series of bizarre crimes taking place in L.A. You see, an unusual number of “normal” people with no criminal histories have suddenly gone insane, committing horrific crimes with a reckless, even malicious, disregard for persons or property.

Michael Nouri plays Beck, the lead detective on the case who is teamed with a Seattle F.B.I. agent named Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan) to investigate the crime sprees. From the outset, Gallagher exhibits strange behavior (like when he is given an Alka-Seltzer and water, eats the tablet and becomes frightened after the tablet begins to effervesce in his mouth).

As the body count begins to climb and new perps seem to be coming out of the woodwork, Beck’s distrust of Gallagher deepens as he feels Gallagher has been less than forthcoming regarding vital details. When Beck finally does receive them, he certainly isn’t ready to believe Gallagher (at least not yet).

As you may have guessed, the story involves creatures from outer space, and I couldn’t fault anyone for thinking that it is a recipe for disaster (take hackneyed buddy-cop genre, add spacemen, infuse with dash of comedy).

But you see where I’m going with this, right?

The Hidden was an absolute hoot. The story isn’t played for laughs, but the few that are present add some much-needed levity (standout for me: how the bad alien tries to pick up two women off the street in a stolen Ferrari). The story moves along briskly as Beck naturally moves toward belief in the extraterrestrial elements afoot (and then Beck later emptying his pistol into the bad guy screaming “DIE YOU F***ER!!”)

Director Jack Sholder takes care not to let the story drag and keeps his focus on what makes this incredible story work. For instance, he doesn’t let the relationship between Beck and Gallagher get syrupy and clichéd. There are some well-staged set pieces, too: the opening car chase, the jail shootout, the final showdown between MacLachlan and the bad guy (the latter scene reminded me of the lobby shootout in The Matrix – homage perhaps?) And although you can see the ending coming a mile away, there is *just* enough ambiguity to leave a pleasant taste in your mouth.

No film is perfect (well, except for The Conversation). I had hoped for a bit more humor, the bad alien looks like a striped sock dipped in rubber cement, and the final battle had me scratching my head vis-à-vis the cops who were trying to take down MacLachlan. But a movie isn’t a mathematical formula – it is storytelling and entertainment, and my quibbles didn’t detract appreciably from my satisfaction with this fun romp.

Oh yes – Recommended!

(Michael Adams at MovieLine also takes a fun look back at this forgotten gem.)

P.S. – For the role of the stripper, Claudia Christian was an inspired choice, Mr. Sholder

Horrible day yesterday at work and at home. Wife and I had first counseling session yesterday which went south. I pray we will get through.

Reviewed SQL, XML and HTML all in the past week. Markup on the brain. It’s so bad that when I sign my name I start to write a closing tag.

This is a test of my PingFire Firefox broadcast add-on. This is only a test. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep….

Trying to find time to read briefs about healthcare debate. Also teaching myself some ANSI SQL. Chomping at the bit to start job hunt again.