Automated Features

Merry Christmas, yeah yeah.

Here's what I want to talk about: robot movies and Robin Williams.
I think two of this guys greatest performances in mainstream Hollywood features are when he is playing a dedicated humanoid.

The first movie was Bicentennial Man from earlier in the decade. I really liked the theme of the movie - not knowing how quite to react to a being displaying human traits while being 100% artificial. It wouldn't be until Spielberg's A.I. that I would really see this touched on again.

Williams fit the part so well - sure he's a little repetitive but this was a certain change for him and his ideas really shone through the character of Andrew.
I felt like his personal experiences really helped him in this movie, because he was able to act as if he had never had any - 'loved and lost' didn't even apply to him, he really had to just be a stranger to the humans.

I like the idea acting as a 'stranger to the humans' - I think it's about as narcissistic a role can get. Whether it's Neo, or Andrew - the 'one' is always a critical stint. The writing is equally as important, but for what it's worth I think this was Williams at his best. A non-human.

Recently I had the chance to watch the amazingly cast Robots. Williams comes back as a robot and let me tell you - he is just killer funny. Sure it's not him acting, but the style Williams usually animates himself shone through in his voice and the little, red CG character was the perfect tool to amplify his very unique way.

With killer timing and with an amazing attitude this guy nails it to the wall.
I don't like Williams in my things, but this was him really at his best. A role he is good with and I think he came away from the experience with more in his head because of it.

Just a nice little, unedited rant.

A Blossoming

Ok, so some of you might know what my old job was in my past life. IT Support as a contractor to the IBM office in Toronto to corporate AT&T users.

Another detail: this was my old job - I was let go about a month ago due to performance and cut backs. It happens, right?

The man that helped me get my foot in the door is now facing the loss of his job.
You see AT&T can't afford the service offered by Canadian agents - this has happened before.
They have made a cost cutting decision to move more people to India. Outsourcing. The glass-ceiling. All that.

So, my good friend will likely loose his job because the fat cats don't want to sacrifice any of their comforts - this is the system we as humans have designed.
God fuck are we a pitiful species or what.

But then this happened: http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2008/12/is-the-internet.html?%3F

No internet in India - no outsourcing.
Money, money, money, money down the drain.

So, talk about bad luck, eh AT&T?

PS Fuck you AT&T - I dont work for you anymore and all your employee's are the biggest fucktards on the planet. No room for incompetence in the New World Order, but here we are. I hope that corporation dies and dies hard.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth was Quiet and All the Cars Stopped Working.

This is the working title for this movie, but it was later renamed to be closer to a 1951 cult classic.

I can say I was itching for the movie to get better at about the halfway point. Then the guy next to me looked at the time on his phone. The guys behind me started dissing Smith during his big solo and I could hear other people approving that this was a bit much for a 6 story tall IMAX screen.

The parts with Gort are really great, here is a part of the story that's completely CG and has very few human elements.
Gort's big numbers are:

1) The first encounter he goes ballistic after they shoot the Keannu Placenta - gross, eh?

2) They then try to get some drone aircraft and sidewinder-ify into Gort.
Gort blows all their shit up.

3) The put the giant fucking Gort in a giant fucking box.
Problem solved right? He's gonna have to get through the box to start fucking shit up so maybe they'll get enough warning...I dunno what these guys are thinking, but something logical should follow, right?

4) They move Gort to a undisclosed place and try and drill into his head.
The bit breaks and the angry general character in charge angrily orders a new one put on.

5) Gort turns into nanomachines, like tonnes and starts increasing his PPM in the atmosphere by consuming metallic items in the way, like that truck in the trailer. Or the stadium.

Gort has been my all time favorite robot for a while. Like...I'll have to make a list of my top 10 robots. Gort from the 1951 classic has always been a fucking tribute. The "special effect" of that day and age were tall boots and a 7'7" actor.
The new guy seemed to be what I had pretty much imagined from the get go, so I'd have to say I'm not that upset with it.

Then you have the Connelly factor. The only person who's acting pretty well to the phenomenon of life visiting Earth. The Cleese character is shitting himself with excitement. The Secretary of Defence/The World is about the last thing you would expect... she's acting like a bird with a busted wing that's all worried. Only it's not busted that badly, the bird is just a dumb bird. So, not a fan of the characters from Earth other than Connelly.

In the scene avec Cleese, nearly a third of the screen time is occupied by the introduction sequence involving Klaatu solving a math equation or some crap.
Ok, so their advance sure I guess that makes sense with the slightly predictable futuristic idea of a nanomachine gort.

But here's a real beef. There is an origin story that takes the audience by storm in the very beginning.
"Let's flex the sound system with a blizzard effect" said the producer after filming, "test audience is not happy"

Keanu was a 1928 arctic explorer before he transformed into Klaatu.
What? What the fuck, if one man can be... absorbed by the awesome-race why can't all humans?

Kind of a hole-ridden flick, but all and all it was a good time. Keanu was pretty awesome - he is really meant to be the one human that does not quite fit. He's always the "one" in every project he does, and I love him for it. Good work on his part I think. Good work is not the same as saying, "Killer performance" or "Oscar worthy" but for a career actor who takes it very seriously I think the end product speaks for itself. And that's why I went and saw it.

Merry Christmas, Christmas, Christmas and Another

A review of a non-memorable movie.

I have checked out the new Vince Vaughn picture. You see internet dwellers, I was afraid he had dried up and was no longer in the business we call show, but alas he's breathing and was walking just 2 weeks ago down the red carpet to the premier of his new film Four Christmases.

Wait John, Vince isn't the only guy in this picture. But he's on screen most of the time.
He's having a go with his wife, she's pushing for a committed marriage, but he's returning with "Kids suck balls, I don't want any! And marriage? Fahgettabotit"
That's Vince Vaughn's character and attitude for most of the movie.

Till Jon Voight shows up and smacks some sense into him and gets the Christmas spirit working properly.

Halfway through this movie you realize the jokes have stopped.
This is a terrible realization because it makes going home like a very appealing idea, but I already paid at the box office and have my 5 dollar soda. I'll stay.
All star cast - they must be taking a paycut all being in front of the camera.
Ebert gave it two stars but complained that both Tim McGraw (Vince's brother)and Dwight Yoakam (Pastor Phil) aren't singing. I didn't know Yoakam was an accomplished singer. I only know him as "I'm Raoul" from Panic Room where a terrified Jodi Foster barricaded herself and her daughter in a steel box and as Doc Miles from Crank.
I liked both flicks, thought he was a good actor and I've been excited to see where this spunky, grey-haired Pollack was going to go next.
He had maybe 6 lines.
OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration but I was sad to not see him as more.
1 star, two thumbs down and Tim McGraw, bro sorry to say, but this is the most appropriate time to end your acting career. Stop giving Hollywood these bad ideas about cage fighting family Christmases. It's scary and it should be in a depressing country song rather than a million dollar picture.

Currently Four Christmases is number 1 in the box office and has grossed $69.4 million.

Synaptic Brain Scan

So, I have watched The Island (Dir. M. Bay) and I can say it is a good movie that I haven't been bored with.
I enjoy the visuals and I can relate to Michael Bay in that the visual element of the film seems to be the best tool used to communicate the story.
Dialogue is ok, and it seems that Bay isn't concerned on nailing any performances that will make you gasp.


The point really quickly is that Bay uses the camera as an evolved tool to help tell the story. Instead of capturing 100 takes of Scarlett Johansson screaming 'Run', Bay is concerned with things like...what colors do I want to make this picture consume.
In The Island we see plenty of yellows and greens, we notice a super big change in the imagery as soon as Merrick's plot is revealed.

Do you remember the Matrix? Do you remember the difference between scenes in the 'real world' and scenes in the Matrix? Matrix filming was all done with the addition of a Green filter.
These are things that were tried in like... Metropolis that we're just catching up with. Bay is a picture oriented director, that's the point I guess I'm making.


I just wanted to talk about a particular scene from The Island where crazy Merrick is using those 'nano-bots' to scan Lincoln's brain. I want to remark on the really wide shot that was used to zoom in from behind Merrick's back right onto Lincoln's face.
This is such a fucking awesome shot. Do they rail the camera closer? I think not. This is all done with a single optic - an incredible zoom lens.

Everytime though I am astounded by the level of focus.
Bay relentlessly reminds us on his commentary track included on the DVD that it is not a CGI manipulation.
Anyway, I love it and this is Hollywood Evolution.

Using Windows Vista

Have used it for all but 3 hours. Seems to be ok so far.

Reruns of "Laugh In"

So, going back in time to when TV was a beautiful age. See, there aren't that many shows on from the 60's or 70's. They don't circulate ALOT of them first of all, but I don't think you could even air the campy sketch-com program in this day and age.

I wonder, but I bet Laugh In eventually showed the image of Mohammad.
Take that MacFarlen. Arte Johnson had similar view point in an interview with him on one of the released DVD's of Laugh-In. It is good that they are selling some of it after so long, but there are some real gems available on Youtube. Almost, definitely constantly changing, but none the less you're guaranteed a prime clip each visit. It's like the campy form of videolistic heroine.

You can't resist because you realize that this was HUGE. It had 200 000 000 viewers easily - that is to say it was as American as apple pie and Scouts. It was the "Killer App" for color TV in the 70's. But sadly it was not left to stay. It was the big bang and TV evolution since has been drifting further from this intuitive form of comedy.

Any intelligent civilization from beyond our sun would look at our TV writing since as the residue from the time the networks were first created - a continued build up of slime on a once crystal clear window.

It's only going to continue to drift further and further towards hell, too.
Corporate control of media is totally realistic, it does but the emphasis on quality. But you know what I noticed about Laugh In?

1) There are no ad's running over everything.
2) The network ran the credits without cutting to a news anchor and this and that.

I feel that running promo's and ad's OVER TOP of a TV show is insulting. Any show that started in the 90's knows what I'm talking about. Greed is consuming TV at a exponential rate and the circle keeps it that way. The circle of life? The circle of death? The hamster wheel?

It doesn't matter, I was born in '88. This gives me no real advantage, by the time I was watching TV it had already been transformed from a world stage in your living room to a cheap vice.

I love TV. Without the median, there would be no message. We needed the message to evolve more. We are closer to God because of the TV. We are more connected with each other, mostly because of the TV. God Bless Technology. And God Bless Goldie Hawn.

Without my car

Without my car,
I'd go crazy.

I'd have no place to be.
It's not that I'm here,
it's not that I'm there.
It's the fact that I'm moving
that's me.

I like that it signals.
And no one else does.
I like that fluid sprays
over the side.

I like that I go fast
I like that I go slow,
but mostly I like the sound.

So never take my car.
I'll offer my wallet,
which would jacked on the
anyday in a minute.

TCS, ABS and that's all
it's got, but if I ever get
stuck I'm out in a rush.

Winter tires are for losers.

Tediusness

I spoke yesterday about my audio playback choice program?
Ok, I might as well break the truth. I don't have any music. I do, and I had a DVD collection. You move around like any normal family (Colin) and stuff gets lost and miss placed. So what do you do?

Anyway, I have started with the basics in my collection of new. I have Michael Franti and Spearhead in the very top, followed by some Weezer.
That's all for now.

An Unprepared Review of Songbird and Justification for iTunes

Ok, so I have been excited about iTunes since I got my first iPod when I was in Grade 10 high school in 2003. I was ready for a change after using Windows Media Player for much of my life. I started with version 5 when we got our brand new Windows ME machine where this new Media Player skin was considered a major upgrade from what was available to users since '98.


Ooooh, visualizations. That was what won me over. Anyway, here I am, 5 years of iTunes, a collection devastation twice, requiring a full reconstruction and a few iPods. Here I am yearning for a change. There is nothing technically wrong with iTunes. There are some very minor usability issues: It doesn't like FLAC or ORG file formats and more often than not I am using MP3's to keep things simple, but as time goes on I am wanting to start encoding in a more robust compression since hard drives drop in price by the second.

Songbird was the first choice.
It only takes a very small issue with technical reliability to put me off of thinking the advantages are superior.
1) The time-bar doesn't work for some songs.
2) I can't rely on doubleclick song starts from the library.
3) Album artwork is a slow process, with my hardware configuration I can mass write id3 tags much faster using iTunes.

I just installed iTunes, not looking back.
There are add-ins for iTunes that solve these problems. Open source can't win here.