Life and times of a webgeek
Movies-n-music
Walking Dead comic series coming to AMC
Jan 23rd
- Image via Wikipedia
The Walking Dead is a comic book series that riffs on the original George R Romero premise of slow, shambling undead hordes destroying civilization, borrowing liberally from other mainstream zombie fiction as it goes. I’ve read 8 or 9 volumes of the series at this point and overall I like it. I was pretty happy to see that the network that gives us Mad Men (probably the best dramatic series, ever, imo) has greenlit production of a television series based on the Walking Dead comics. I have high hopes for this and can’t wait until it starts. More details including an interview with the writer can be found here on wired.com, and some details on the recent greenlighting of the series are here on io9.com.
How to get your ratings out of Netflix
Jan 15th
I love Netflix and use it constantly, both for physical discs and for streaming over the network to my ps3 and xbox360. Consequently I’ve rated a lot of movies on Netflix, 983 to be exact. Netflix isn’t perfect though, and one thing about them that really annoys me is that they still seem to think the walled garden approach to content on the web is the way to go. The simplest evidence of this is how they keep the ratings you apply to movies locked up inside their site – there’s no mechanism to get them out. I’ve started using tools like Fandango on my iphone, and I wanted those ratings available to me so I could start porting them over. Enter the super useful Firefox extension Greasemonkey, and this script by the user Maarten over on userscripts.org. A few minutes after getting this running I had all my Netflix movie ratings in a text file on my local machine. Great, great stuff and super easy to get running.
Maarten
Things to do when you’re sick
Mar 16th
So I got food poisoning Saturday from a package of indian food. It’s a shame – one of my favorite dishes (spicy spinache with cottage cheese) and now just thinking of it makes me gag. Anyway I couldn’t eat for almost 2 days and was so weak I couldn’t really do anything, so I lay around watching tv, alternating between half paying attention and dozing feverishly. It pretty much sucked. I did watch a lot of movies though, including:
I am Legend – it stunk. It’s a remake of an old Vincent Price movie and based on a classic short story about a sort of Zombie apocalypse brought on by medical research. This version strays pretty far from the source. The first 1/3 is kind of interesting as it follows Will Smith around a post apocalyptic NYC, but it falls apart and has a very stupid ending. Avoid is my advice.
Flesh and Blood – early Paul Verhoeven. 1501, Europe, and a band of mercenaries falls under the sway of a lunatic priest, engaging in a series of larcenous adventures. Kind of fun, lots of cheesecake action, and a somewhat realistic depiction of the grimy middle ages, but really B-movie material.
Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone. Pretty good documentary. This is the second documentary I’ve seen on him and I really admire the guy. He’s stood up for our first amendment freedoms in a way no one else I can think of has.
Stalingrad: Classic war film that no one seems to know about. Originally a German production, it’s been dubbed for the US market. Brutal, brutal depiction of the siege of Stalingrad from the point of view of the frontline german infantry. This is the third time I’ve watched it. One of the most effective anti-war films I can think of.
Felon: Low budget drama exposing the gritty realities of prison culture. Better than I expected. The beginning and end are a bit too pat, but the middle exposition of prison life in a maximum security facility was terrifying. Great acting from Val Kilmer.
I also managed to make my way through a good portion of the last season of The Shield believe it or not – it’s been a movie marathon. I have to say I’m not liking The Shield much either – way too contrived at this point the only likeable characters at this point are Dutch and Claudette.
Movie review quickie: Taxi to the dark side
Feb 27th
Taxi to the Dark Side should infuriate you. It’s a competent documentary exploring exactly what kind of dysfunctional system we setup in Afghanistan and Iraq in the service of the ‘war on terror.’ Its main focus is the story of an Afghani taxi driver who gets picked up by American forces and ends up dead, exploring the people involved, the policies that lead to his death, and the aftereffects. It’s chilling, infuriating, and tragic. Anyone interested in evidence of just how incompetent and evil the Bush administration was should check out this film, then you should track down Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and kick them in the balls. I’m not kidding.
Movie review quickie: Outlander
Feb 21st
I have wildly varied taste in movies. I’ll sit down to watch something like Cache, then turn to something like Outlander next, and find things to enjoy in each of them. Outlander is a competently executed modern B movie. A spaceship crashes on Medieval Norway, and the lone survivor is soon captured by a local viking village. It turns out his ship had been infiltrated by a vicious space dog/lizard from beyond, and the rest of the movie features viking on viking, viking on spaceman, and viking+spaceman on space dog/lizard action, pretty much nonstop. It’s a fun B movie ride and not much more. The story tries to build some tenderness and a sense of character with the spaceman’s backstory, but the acting’s not up to the task so it fell flat for me. The special effects are decent, better than I expected actually, and the action is generally well executed. Worth a look if you like competent but unexceptional Sci fi. Here’s the trailer to give you a sense of it:
Movie review quickie: Cache
Feb 20th
I watched Cache with Susan last night. It’s a bit hard to categorize the film – on the one hand in many ways it’s a thriller, but it’s missing some of the requisite parts. For one thing, there’s almost no physical violence – almost everything that happens revolves around dramatic tensions between the major characters. The story follows a well off French family who begin recieving creepy videotapes, cards, and phone calls. The father begins to suspect who’s involved after one of the tapes shows his childhood home, and this leads to the film’s central conflict.
Truth be told I think the movie went straight over our heads. It wasn’t till afterwords as we sat discussing it that it occured to us that in part it’s an allegory for France’s relationship with Algeria, something that would have been much clearer to the film’s original French audience. We were also non-plussed by the ending, which comes abruptly and seemingly without any resolution of the central tensions. It strikes me now that this was really the point – there is no pat resolution to the issues that are explored, they’re ongoing and the resolution remains to be seen.
Anyway, I enjoyed the film – it’s well acted and has some decent cinematography, plus it’s really thought provoking. I doubt that many folks who read my site would enjoy it though – it’s also slow, deliberate, and very reliant on interpretation – this is a show, not tell, movie. There are shots that last for minutes where nothing, seemingly, happens, and I suspect that would drive most of my friends nuts. Still, I really enjoyed it and I think Susan did too.
Half Life 2 as a live action movie
Feb 13th
Check out this amazing live action film inspired by the setting and events of the Half Live series of first person shooters. This is mindblowingly cool, especially since it’s a tiny team putting it together. Warning – this is NSFW, featuring realistic gory violence.
That’s just the first episode – there’s more information available over at The Purchase Brother’s website.
Movie Review: Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Feb 9th
Susan had to work on Sunday and I was tired from staying up all night playing Rock Band, so Sunday afternoon/evening I lounged around watching tv. One of the things I watched was Zack and Miri make a Porno. It was just ok. If you like Kevin Smith movies, you’ll probably enjoy it – scatological humor, discussion of subjects that are normally out of bounds, profanity laden rants, etc, all the Kevin Smith bits you would expect are here, including a scene I wish I had never seen (if you’ve seen the movie, you know which one I mean – it’s all about the cake frosting). It’s also got awkward acting, poorly directed scenes that don’t flow,and a ridiculous plot. All in all though there are a few laughs to be had and Elizabeth Banks is fun to watch.
Film: Shotgun Stories
Jan 29th
Susan got a recommendation for this one from Bob Mondello on NPR and we watched it last night. Disappointing sums it up. It’s a drama about a feud between two families that becomes violent when the family patriarch dies. It’s a meditation on violence that’s not very well acted and not very well filmed, plus there’s a certain lack of….verisimilitude? Authenticity? One character walks around in the same bleached white gauze bandages all movie, another demonstrates his supposed mechanical skills by showing his younger brothers how to tighten a bolt…it just came across poorly. There were a few laughs to be had at the expense of the dim rednecks that make up one of the families, the ending is unusual for a film with this theme, and it exhibits that rare ‘show, not tell’ quality I so enjoy – these are the only positive things I can think of to say about the film.
It’s well reviewed over on IMDB so maybe it’s your cup of tea – it wasn’t mine despite generally liking dramas.
Book finished: Bangkok Tattoo
Jan 26th
If you enjoyed Bangkok 8, which is the previous book by this author and features many of the same characters, or if you like well crafted detective stories steeped in local (Thai, in this case) color with generous helpings of raunchy sex and graphic violence, there’s some fun to be had with this book. Others should probably stay away, because the book is flawed. Sonchai, the main character of the first book and one of the main draws, sits on the sidelines in this book for long stretches as a flawed narrator, a beautiful young-ish Thai prostitute, relates how she became involved with the CIA agent who turns up dead in the beginning of the book. Thai prostitute adventures in the USA are fun and all, but I prefer Sonchai’s world to the one I live in seen through the eyes of another. The writing style’s the same, there are plenty of laughs, and there’s still enough Thai color to keep it interesting, but I’d probably give this one a pass if I could choose again.
Bangkok Tattoo over on amazon, if you’re still interested..
Pineapple Express – don’t bother
Jan 21st
I watched Pineapple Express over the weekend, which may surprise folks since it’s not really in tune with my tastes, but I loved the Cheech and Chong movies back in the day and enjoyed the 40 year old Virgin and Superbad, which had some of the same folks involved, so I figured why not give it a shot. I shouldn’t have bothered. It starts off ok, introducing the main character, his dope dealer, and the improbable series of events that leads to them spending the movie fleeing a gang of murderous thugs, but the whole thing feels like amateur hour with bad acting, sophmoric humor, a plot full of holes, and an unsatisfying ending. My recommendation? Stay away.
Just finished: Crystal Rain
Jan 6th
So I just finished reading Crystal Rain. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the reviewers over on Amazon, but all in all it was an enjoyable read. Strengths would be: imaginative setting (descendents of an Aztec and carribean islander diaspora battle it out on a world fallen far from it’s starfaring origins, proxies in a war between interstellar powers trapped on the planet with them), action packed. Cons would be writing quality, cardboard characters, unsatisfying ending. It’s the authors first book, so he deserves some slack, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue on to the subsequent books in this setting.
RIAA finally gets a clue?
Dec 19th
The RIAA finally appears to have figured out what pretty much everyone else has known for years – suing your customers is not good business practice, nor is it likely to convince the rest of your customer base to change their behavior. They’ve announced they’re going to stop suing individual file sharers and turn instead to partnerships with ISP‘s. Of course I’m happy to see this happening, but my message to the RIAA remains unchanged: FUCK YOU. I continue to hope you’ll be obsoleted out of business. No one loves a middleman, especially not a litigious heads up their ass middleman.
More news on George RR Martin on HBO
Nov 12th
Image via Wikipedia
Last winter I noted that HBO had optioned the rights to George RR Martin‘s Song of Ice and Fire series of novels. I incorrectly assumed this meant they were going into production but it turns out that at the time they simply optioned the rights, and they’ve recently announced that they’re funding the production of a pilot episode. Pretty great news really – it still doesn’t guarantee we’ll be seeing the series on HBO, but it’s a significant step forward and increases the chances. Here’s hoping it’s good – as the article I link to notes, if anyone can pull this off it’s HBO.
If you’re unfamiliar with it, The Song of Fire and Ice is an as yet incomplete series of gritty high fantasy novels set in a sort of alternate medieval Great Britain. It covers some generally familiar ground, but it’s really well written, has some fantastic plot twists, and plays quite a bit with conventions in the genre. They’re definitely worth checking out if fantasy is your cup of tea.
Before the Devil Knows you’re Dead – two thumbs up
Nov 10th
Susan and I saw Before the Devil Knows you’re Dead this weekend, and we both liked it to differing degrees. Susan didn’t care so much for the open ended conclusion, wereas I thought it was pretty great – otherwise we both enjoyed it. The story concerns two brothers with cashflow problems who decide to pull off a robbery and the chaos that follows as things go wrong. Central parts of the story are presented as out of sequence vignettes, jumping around in the timeline of events, and one particular vignette may not even be ‘real,’ but I’ll skip the spoilers so as not to ruin it in case anyone reading this wants to see it. This makes understanding the story and identifying the characters challenging at times but it kept us engaged trying to puzzle out what was going on and who was who. The acting is uneven – Philip Seymour Hoffman is great in one of the leads, as is a very aged Albert Finney, but I was less fond of Ethan Hawke’s manic younger brother (the scenes in the car rental place in particular I thought were pretty bad) and have mixed feelings about Marisa Tomei’s character. All credit to her for spending half the movie unclothed, but several scenes, especially when she leaves Hoffman’s character, just came across as forced. On the plus side, she looks great 
This is a slow moving drama, so it’s not for everyone, especially not for a lot of my regular readers, but if you’re in the mood for a well crafted, thought provoking, reasonably well acted crime drama, it’s definitely worth checking out.
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The new Incredible Hulk movie? Mediocre at best.
Nov 2nd
I grew up reading men in tights comics, mostly the Marvel stuff, and David Banner shares my first name so I loved him as a little kid, predisposing me to like this movie. Instead I was mildly disappointed. The last 20 minutes or so are fun, with competently executed action and special effects, but they fail to make up for the rest of the film, with it’s turgid pace, uninteresting relationships, and flat acting. I mean, come on! There are some seriously talented actors starring the film – Edward Norton, William Hurt, Liv Tyler – and the director fails to get decent performances out of them. I think this is the first time I’ve disliked Norton in a film. The film is worth seeing if you’re a fan of comics or the Hulk, but all others are best off staying away, and even Hulk fans will probably be frustrated with how much the movie messes with hulk cannon (his origin, the origin of two of his nemesis being the chief offenses).
[edit] As Kevin points out in the comments, it’s Bruce Banner, not David Banner. No idea what I was thinking there – now I can’t remember why I loved the Hulk so much as a kid.
Credit where it’s due: Netflix and Blu-Ray fees
Oct 21st
Some months ago, Netflix announced that they would be introducing new fees to cover the cost of customers like me who have Blu-Ray and opt to get Blu-Ray movies over DVD when they’re available, because the discs cost more to purchase than regular DVDs. I was irritated by this. While I like Blu-Ray I didn’t neccesarily want to pay a tithe to get movies in that format. It’s great and all, but for most kinds of movies it’s not that much of an improvement over DVD. Only big budget or carefully shot movies are markedly improved by the higher definition. Meanwhile, I figured Netflix’s fee structure would only lengthen the time it takes for Blu-Ray to catch on and for the cost of the discs to come down, because folks would simply opt not to get them if they cost more.
As of this month, Netflix is charging the fee, and they made a great compromise move. It’s only $1 more a month, easily palatable and an acceptable balance between cost and access. I was pleasantly surprised, figuring they would raise it by at least several dollars, or start charging a per Blu-Ray disc rental addon fee. Kudos to the folks at Netflix for how they handled this.
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I can’t get ‘The Road’ out of my head
May 15th
I’ve been on a bit of a Cormac McCarthy kick of late, working through Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, and now The Road. It’s completely fantastic, telling the story of a boy and his father struggling their way across a post-apocalyptic landscape, questing for food and safety in a world turned barbaric. It’s also very grim. I had nightmares while I was reading it, but at the same time I couldn’t put it down. If you fancy a stroll through a post apocalyptic landscape bereft of hope, I can’t think of a better book to recommend.
How’s that for a sales pitch Seriously though, the book is fantastic so long as you know what you’re getting into and appreciate it for what it is.
Another example of why you should never buy DRM content
Apr 24th
Digital Rights Management is such a crock. In today’s example of why you should never, ever ‘license’ DRM’d content, check out what’s happened to the customers of Microsoft’s MSN Music business. Microsoft is turning off the lights on the service and ceasing support for the infrastructure which provides the ‘keys’ which allow you to move your content from machine to machine. You can burn CD’s to rescue the content off the hardware (while reducing the quality), so you won’t permanently lose access to it so long as you take that step and accept the quality trade off, but you should never have had to do that in the first place. As I’ve warned before, stay away from services licensing DRM’d content. Emusic, Amazon, and others now offer unencumbered mp3 files at higher bit rates than Apple and the other DRM-encumbered music merchants. iTunes may be convenient but it’s supporting an untenable business model. To those who would say say Apple would never pull a similar move, companies don’t get much larger than Microsoft, and they just did it. Vote with your wallet folks.
In which Dave gets his groove back
Nov 19th
So back when, in my college days, I used to dance a lot – at live concerts especially, but also at parties on campus, social events, and whatnot. Somehow as I’ve aged I’ve become more reserved and self conscious about it and rarely if ever dance, to the point where it’s occasionally been an issue with my girlfriends over the last 10 years or so. I mention this because this weekend I visited my friends Dave and Lisa at their new place in Westport, MA, and Friday night we went to see Dark Star Orchestra, a Grateful Dead cover band. By the second song I was on my feet bopping with the rest of the crowd, without even thinking about it. I had a blast, and it definitely made me nostalgic for my free wheeling self back in the 80′s. It was the first time I’d seen DSO and they were great. I guess they often play actual setlists of Dead shows, but Friday they were just winging it, playing songs from many eras. The highlight was a 10-15 minute take on Alligator, which was less like Pigpen’s drunken bluesy take on it and more rock/jam band, but it was great and rocked the place.
I was also surprised to see how much dope folks were smoking. The show was in Lowell, MA, in a small concert hall, and there were only a couple of hundred people there, and I saw the cops drag out two folks and security track down several others, and yet still folks were smoking dope all over the place – great clouds of it were gushing up over the floor during the sets. Either these folks are fools (most likely) or the penalty for possession must be trivial in Massachusetts.
Anyway I had a blast, I’d definitely go see DSO again, they were great and the crowd scene brought back a lot of fun memories from my teen/early 20′s years.
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