I don’t care who knows it; I loved Waterworld. It was skewered during production for its reported $200 million cost, later corrected to $175 million, and never really had a chance out of the gate. The film earned $255.2 million not including DVD sales, a modest haul, but still a 46% return on investment. I never really understood the criticism over its cost. “You’re spending what, to entertain me? Well that’s just unacceptable!” It’s not like the ticket prices went up as they do at a concert venue.

Kevin Costner stars in this apocalyptic thriller about the future Earth after the ice caps have melted. Mankind is afloat, fighting tooth and nail to survive. It’s Mad Max on the high seas with Costner filling the Mad Max role as the Mariner who glides around his boat and the sea defending against pirates, referred to as Smokers. But what really separates Costner from the rest of mankind is the genetic mutation that has given him both lungs and gills, allowing him to live above water or below. When the residents of a floating city discover the Mariner as a “mutato,” they capture and sentence him to death in a kangaroo court. Just as the execution is to be carried out, the “atoll” comes under fire by an army of Smokers, commanded by Dennis Hopper who chews the scenery as the Deacon. For the Mariner to make his escape from the atoll he is forced to enlist the help of the young Helen, played by Jeanne Tripplehorn whose most notable performance may have been as Tom Cruise’s wife in The Firm. In exchange for her help, Helen wants safe passage on the Mariner’s boat for her and her ward, Enola, played by Tina Majorino who would grow up to act as the glamour shot taking, key chain making, love interest in Napolean Dynamite. Enola is the real reason for the attack on the atoll due to her mysterious tattoo that is rumored to lead to dry land and the salvation of mankind, making the battle between good and evil literally about the skin off her back. The Mariner finds himself an unlikely hero on a quest for something that he ultimately doesn’t need and fears.

Costner’s performance is fluid and excellent, but I’ll admit being a little biased. I like his films so much that I would probably plunk down the cost of a ticket to watch him read the newspaper for two hours, or simply deliver the newspaper as he did in the similarly apocalyptic tale, The Postman. However, with all due respects to Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper, the real star of this film is the setting. Albeit at times a little comical, the film really delivers on its promise to provide a “water world”. There’s no land in site, everything is recycled and salvaged from floating debris, and the characters move about the boats and floatillas as though they’ve lived there their whole lives, which it may have seemed like to some of the actors. Costner himself spent 157 days on set, working six days a week.

Another aspect of the movie are the many inside jokes, the most obvious of which revolve around ecology. After all, the movie is ultimately about global warming long before Al Gore took to the screen. The character Enola is surely named for the Enola Gay, the bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare on Hiroshima, Japan. The evil pirates are called Smokers for their obstinant use of burning fuels, but later we see that it could also be termed for the cigarettes that Deacon uses to reward his crew.  And, we discover that the Smoker army is transported around on the Exxon Valdez, infamous for running aground in Price William Sound, Alaska, spilling between 11 and 30 million gallons of oil in 1989. Deacon refers to the convicted captain of the Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood, as “Old Saint Joe”.  Also, look for King Kong’s Jack Black in an early role in his career playing a Smoker pilot.

"Let’s have an intelligent conversation here: I’ll talk, and you listen.”
Dennis Hopper as Deacon in Waterworld, 1995

MyHeritage.com, a family network site that allows you to share photos and your family tree, has a new section for facial recognition.  After registering, you can upload a photo and compare it against MyHertiage.com’s databases, including a database of celebrities.  With it, you can see which celebrities you look like.  However, before you try passing yourself off as a celebrity at a posh LA nightclub, you may want to add a dose of reality and ask a few friends.  When I ran the recognition software, the first two hits would have suggested that I look either like Hal Sparks of Talk Soup fame or David Beckham of soccer fame.  I think the software may have been focusing too much on my facial hair, because I can’t see anything else these two have in common with each other or with me.  If anything, I’d say Hal Sparks looks a lot like Chris Carraba from Dashboard Confessional.  Chris in turn looks like the little brother to former MTV VJ, turned talk show host, Carson Daly.

However, MyHeritage wasn’t completely wrong with its face matching.  It did suggest a match between me and Sean Astin of The Lord of the Rings.  I suppose that one’s not too far off the mark.  But then again, doesn’t Sean Astin look a little like Kevin Connolly who plays E on HBO’s Entourage?

Lately, I’ve been keeping up with the various blogging sites of which I’m a member.  Blogsoldiers was recently sold and has been relaunched by the new owner who will be rolling out some new features.  It seems like some changes have already gone through, because it looks like a problem that had plagued me (where after a handful of sites, the frame would stick on the same site over-and-over) has been repaired.  I look forward to the new features.  BlogExplosion has also been attempting a sale and is still available for purchase.  I’ve also recently joined BlogVillage and BlogBurst.  While updating my profile on BlogBurst, I was asked to write something about myself.  You may have already seen something like this in my Mission Statement and Biography, but I thought I’d share what I wrote just in case.

“It took me a long time to take the plunge and setup my own blog.  I had read a lot of blogs and followed some regularly.  After a while, I started to detect a disturbing trend at one of my most-visited blogs (which shall remain nameless): the author seemed to be getting nastier.  His posts went from providing interesting and funny stories and links to spewing angry gripes and diatribes.  At first it was subtle, just an occasional post taking a pot-shot at religion or politics.  Then it seemed to become an every day occurrence.  Finally, I found myself hard-pressed to find anything that wasn’t cynical, snide, or mean.  I didn’t enjoy the site anymore, so I simply stopped visiting it.  But, it got me thinking about how often I had run into people like this, people with a list of grievances and a loud voice with which to shout them.  It’s depressing.  It’s boring.  And it’s entirely lopsided.  I figured that the best way to combat this constant onslaught of cynicism was to spread some information about some of the good things in this world.  I don’t write about my political or religious views, although I’m ashamed of neither, but I do write about things I enjoy, interesting people I meet, or things I’ve read.  My only hope is that you enjoy what I write and if it makes you happy for only a minute, it’s a minute in your day that I’ve won from the cynics.”