I never knew

Another great short sci-fi movie, this one based in the Star Wars universe, Duality is a fight between Sith lords shot entirely against blue screens. The backgrounds themselves are video game caliber which nowadays means almost movie like, the fight scenes are impressive considering there doesn’t seem to be any wire work. Better than the scenes from the first trilogy. Don’t forget to watch until the end after the credits and have a look at some background info, fascinating stuff, huge amount of work to make those few minutes.

A very telling and disapointing though not suprising story about various tactics P.R. flacs and lawyers use to hide or kill detrimental stories in the media. From hiding press releases amongst mounds of other news to giving it to one paper knowing the competitor won’t publish it once it’s been covered already by their nemesis.

That the targets of negative reporting would use all the tactics they can to protect themselves I can understand, I wish they wouldn’t resort to scare tactics but I can see why they do it. What I really don’t like about it is how it is so easy to use bigmedia because they compete like they were selling sugared water, it’s not about getting the news out, it’s about getting it before the other guy and then skipping on it because it’s old news quick. It hurts the quality of the information because it’s thrown together to get there first and it hurts the quality of the news that surrounds us because it’s in no way based on it’s value as information, just it’s value as a product to be sold.

Take pretty much any subject you know well from personal experience or from learning about it for years then watch a report on any news show or even read coverage in a major newspaper, it’s so watered down and/or angled for punch as to be barely recognizable much less of any worth, no wonder people are badly informed.

I can’t believe I never thought to look for this before!! One of the best ( the best?) comics around, Boondocks, is available in book form collections. Christmas has come early this year :). Add to wishlist button. Click.

Or so it would seem, both Agency Chick and Lightspeed Chick posted about Tetris on the same day. Must be those crazy solar storms.

Taking the blogosphere to previously unknown levels of funny self reference, the Tokyo node= (also a blogger of course) commissioned another blogger for a song about the two bloggers who created the two best blogging apps. How meta is that? And it’s even pretty darn good!

Kill Bill vol.1 (8.0)

Just came back from Kill Bill: Vol. 1 minutes ago and it has to be the movie that has me wondering the most wether I like it or not. (you might want to skip this if you haven’t seen it yet)

The quirky Tarantino stuff is there, the soundtrack is superb and varied, might very well have to buy it. There is homage after homage, pop culture nods galore, martial arts movie re-enactments, stylistic recreations, you name it. Q.T. likes to pay respect to his inspirations and I think he might reach his highest level of respectfulness here.

I’m not sure if it’s my tastes changing or if he really goes overboard but I used to be a fan of the ‘ole ultraviolence and here I just got tired of seeing limbs falling everywhere and blood spurting like crazy. Might also be that I was expecting too much…

Liked the chapter thing, liked Uma and Lucy Liu, loved the very last fight scene, impressed with some of the martial arts, very impressed with some of the stylistic “tableaux” and 2-3 specific shots. Just not sure yet how I feel about the movie once you put it together. I liked it but I can’t seem to muster much enthusiasm. As I write this and message with csc though it’s kind of growing on me. Huh. Maybe 8.0?

[Later] Haven’t read Ulysses so I can’t comment on that part but this review on Flak nails everything I think better than I said it above.

Not only is Kill Bill Vol. 1 both brilliant and dull, and intelligible and obscure, but it raises the question: Are Kill Bill’s bloody frames contributing, like a bit of mosaic, to a detailed picture which Tarantino is seeking to construct for his viewers? Or is this cinematic masturbation, the little drops of blood lightly splattered on Lucy Liu’s face just a perverse wet dream?

and

In this incomplete state, it’s impossible to tell whether all of this adds up to anything. The piles and piles of allusions, ranging from Busby Berkley to Brian De Palma to Sergio Leone to Akira Kurosawa to a 20-minute anime interlude, certainly enrichens the texture of the film, and to his credit, Tarantino manages to agglomerate these styles into a unique cinematic voice. For the unskilled director, this type of meta-homage becomes disaster, but when a virtuoso like Tarantino is involved, the effect transcends the traditional tonal limitations of cinema.

[Much Later] Another review, this one by one of my favorite bloggers for the last few weeks who expresses the same doubts as I did but in a much much more detailed and thought out manner. Good read and same resulting score.

No, not movie spoilers, life spoilers. The f*ckers who mess things up on purpose, or by accident, or by just being stupid morons. The lowest common denominator. I’m kind of grouping two things together here but the group I’m pissed at is the one where people abuse the system, any (all?) system and make people take measures to protect themselves, thus making it less pleasant or useful for all others.

One of the places with free WiFi that I used to go to now charges by the half hour because people were abusing the system. Thanks morons. Chris goes in more detail on this issue as it relates to all forms of electronic communications; usegroups, email, discussion boards, messaging and now blog comments. If you have a blog you’ve almost certainly been under attack for the last few weeks or months, bastards posting fake comments containing loads of pr0n links, ads for Vi@gra, etc. I’ve been deleting comments every day for the last few weeks, not a huge deal in terms of time but huge in pissed off effect.

I’m writing this because I needed to bitch a bit but also to ask a question. I’m hesitating between two solutions, install Jay Allen’s MT Blacklist which filters out spam or to fight spam before if starts by disabling comments on entries older than a couple of weeks. The latter so far is my preferred choice since it doesn’t require installation—although disabling older entries is as much if not more work—and… I don’t know, it feels sufficient. If we start going with white lists doesn’t the whole thing escalate while just shutting off older comments just renders the comment spam thing moot?

So what do you think, anyone used to commenting on older entries or do you usually just comment on very recent entries? And if you have a blog, have you encountered the problem and how do you plan to take care of it?

Tomorrow is the season premiere of one of the best shows on tv, 24. Can’t wait to see Jack kick some ass and yell at people ;). It’s also presented as it should be; with no commercial interruptions.

Il y a quelques temps Karl donnait les non règles de YULBlog et en profitait pour inviter quelques carnetiers/bloggeurs à se joindre à nous. Comme la prochaine rencontre est dans deux mercredis j’ai décidé de faire de même tout en leur laissant assez de temps pour canceller tout autres plans ;).

Donc, en plus de réitérer l’invitation aux mêmes “candidats” que Karl, je la présente aussi à: Alex, Nika, Quàn et John.

I’m pretty sure you all read french but just in case; you are cordially invited to join us at YULBlog, an entirely bilingual and quick language changing a la Montréal get together.

Et j’espère bien que les nouveaux banlieusards vont continuer à faire le déplacement.