Link: http://www.caeaglerock.com/images/medialibrary/C3EA3850950CA7F838DAA391C7C66C3943.mov

Here is the Easter video created by our church to help raise volunteers for the weekend services. This is one of the cool things about going to church in LA, I suppose. Enjoy!

V for Vendetta grabbed me as soon as there was a beautiful spray of alliteration in one of its early scenes. V, the name given to the man in the Guy Fawkes mask, is incredibly witty, creative, and wants the English masses to think for themselves instead of bowing/cowering to the Hitler-inspired British rulers. His opening scenes are inspiring and interesting, as is the use of all things visual in this film.

As the story unfolded, I did feel a little bit bogged down by some of the political ideas. The idea of a totalitarian Britain, heavily impacted by the spin the government forces the media to make on its stories, is an interesting one, but unfortunately the addition of many references to America's current politics, religious condemnation of homosexuals, and the banning of the Koran are all things that jerked me out of my suspension of disbelief. Instead of believing in a futuristic society, I merely compared it to our own. I think the movie might have been more powerful if it had stuck to the big ideas rather than getting down to specifics.

That being said, it didn't kill the movie for me. As much as I may have rolled my eyes at certain obvious references to today's world, I liked pretty much everything else. Hugo Weaving is able to channel the spirit of a revolutionary, all while never showing his face. That we believe in him and see him as an emotional character is proof that Weaving has done a great job. Portman, as well, hits all the right notes in her role as Evey, a girl who is brought into V's plot by either coincidence or fate.

The story goes a bit long, but I didn't mind too much. V for Vendetta is filled with great uses of visual effects, music, acting, and some clever dialogue as well. I had a good time and like where it was going with things, although I can see where it could have been better.

... And I liked The Island, so take that for what it's worth.

"In a sense we're doing a 'mea culpa' in saying we've waited too long for a new browser release," Gates said during his talk to kick off Microsoft's first show for designers and developers of high-impact Web sites. "We are very immersed in the browser as a platform." (Microsoft Admits Internet Explorer Mistakes - Yahoo! News)

This has been painfully obvious to everyone familiar with browser issues, but it's nice to see that Microsoft is owning up to the fact that stopping development on an app as crucial as a web browser might be a bad idea.