climate change activist and science communicator; photographer; mapmaker — advocate for a stable global climate, reduced nuclear weapon risks, and safe human-AI interaction
Whether big-studio or independent, celluloid or digital, anything about movies
As an evolving Christmas gift, I am working on a new website for my brother Mica. As of now, there are three big things I mean to do: find and customize a very nice WordPress template, categorize his old posts and make sure the image and video links in them work properly, and try to configure the Broadcast Machine so that people can view and download his videos through iTunes.
I expect that finishing all of that will take me a few days, but I made a good start tonight.
I watched Amadeus with Claire tonight, and the film is really quite spectacular. It is impossible to walk home after seeing it and not get caught up in some of Mozart’s more dramatic musical moments. As with most very successful films, this one manages to offset drama and passion with comedy, in a way that heightens both.
I know almost nothing about Mozart’s life, so I can make no comment as to the accuracy of this portrayal. The film has made me determined that I should actually see an opera. Opera, botany, and classical history are three things that I have specifically decided to learn a great deal about in old age, when the acquisition of useful knowledge is no longer at such a premium.
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One unexpected feature of Istanbul: nightmarish Christmas toys. Sorry for the poor video quality, but it was shot using my digital camera in less-than-ideal lighting conditions.
I am not sure which are the creepiest: the Satanic looking robotic musical Santas, the little boys with assault rifles and grenades, or the crawling shooting soldier. The last is almost certainly the least disturbing, because it is a consistent motif. The middle option is probably the most, because of how the cheerful expression on the faces of the dolls jars with their attire and accouterments.
My brother Mica has a new video online: Red Light. This one is heavier on the special effects than any of the previous ones, and I find it quite entertaining. Here’s a direct link to Google Video.
The twenty minute filming time would be the envy of major studios.
[Update: 19 December 2006] Mica has been interviewed about his films by one of the people affiliated with Bopsta (formerly Google Idol).
It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph.
-Edmund Burke
Through a combination of circumstances that was rather unusual, I ended up watching The Devil Wears Prada with my father at the Phoenix Cinema around midnight.
Prior to seeing the film, I never really understood the virulence with which some people and groups reject the superficiality and extravagance of capitalism. As a result of the film, I now feel more as though I understand the various revolutionaries of the twentieth century and before who sought to smash this wasteful and myopic parasite within society.
Thankfully, the film itself was probably a misrepresentation. In reality, those people with intelligence and resources must be concerned with the millions dying of AIDS, the dangers of nuclear war, increasing authoritarianism in Russia, climate change, and all the rest. Mustn’t they?
Comedy Central has rolled out a new interface for showing Daily Show and Colbert Report clips. The player seems to be rather more stable than the previous version, with no errors discernible in Firefox 2.0 and Mac OS X. The videos themselves are a bit bigger and seem to load faster. Perhaps the biggest improvement is that clip videos now play in sequence, in the order in which the bits were included in the actual episode.
The two biggest new problems are that the window in which the videos now play is very large and cluttered, and that video advertisements are now shown before the first clip you watch and sometimes in between them. For me, this is an acceptable price to pay for an improved viewing experience. It was very annoying to have to go through them one by one before, especially given how about one in three would encounter an error that prevented it from loading.
It would be better to just have it all on YouTube, but I can understand that Comedy Central needs to extract advertising dollars from we web-viewers. Of course, I won’t be de-activating my AdBlock extension or the Filterset G updater for it anytime soon. After a few weeks of using it, the web seems truly garish when viewed in a normal web browser. You need never be troubled by annoying banners again. Flashblock is also a godsend, since almost all the flash on the web is either advertising or potentially malicious.
One very considerable advantage of the greater dissemination of video phones is increased ability to effectively document police brutality and other abuses of power. A recent example example involves UCLA police officers gratuitously using tazers on students in a library. While that situation cannot be entirely understood from the YouTube video, it supports testimony given elsewhere that the use of force was excessive and inappropriate. Hopefully, these tazer-happy UCLA police officers will end up in jail. At least one other incident filmed with a camera phone and uploaded to YouTube is being investigated by the FBI. That incident is also discussed in this editorial.
As I have said again and again here: protection of the individual from unreasonable or arbitrary power – in the hands of government and its agents – is a crucial part of the individual security of all citizens in democratic states. In a world where normal activities increasingly take place within sight of CCTV cameras, it’s nice to see that recording technology can also work for the protection of individuals or – at least – improve the odds of things being set to rights after abuse takes place.
Just don’t expect for it to be impossible for people to determine whose camera was used to shoot the video. Apparently, output from digital cameras can be linked to the specific unit that produced it.
I went into Casino Royale expecting it to be quite good, and it did not disappoint. While I am not going to reveal anything critical to the plot, I can express my appreciation for how this was more of a character driven film than most in the recent Bond franchise. This film is definitely a head and shoulders above any of the mediocre Bond releases since GoldenEye. Most of the big budget explosion scenes were kept to the beginning, allowing for a follow-through more interesting than the massive explosion of the arch enemy’s secret lair.
One strange thing about this film is the anachronisms it introduced into the larger Bond plotline. Rather than a “relic of the Cold War” – as the ‘new’ M called Bond in GoldenEye – he is just starting out, in the post-September 11th world. Now, she is the relic – overwriting her much more conservative predecessor in earlier films. Odd. There is no way this film does not critically damage the George Lazenby, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service portion of the Bond history. Eva Green may be gorgeous and an unusually good actress for a ‘Bond girl,’ but she is no Dianna Rigg.
Without going too much into analysis – I have other things to think about – it can be said that this is a worthy addition to the series, and well worth going to see in theatres if you are the sort to enjoy spy films in general.
PS. Just when you thought it might be over, new complexities have arisen in the publication of the fish paper.
My brother Mica has now won three Google Idol music video contests in a row: two rock contests with his Hives and Arctic Monkeys videos, and one pop contest with his Jock Rock video.
He’s obviously a talented guy. You can congratulate him, or discuss his videos, over at his website. I hope he will have time to assemble an original short film soon.
Note: Google Idol had to be rebranded as Bopsta.com, in the wake of a trademark dispute.
Mica’s ‘Jock Rock’ video came first in the sixth Google Idol pop music video competition. Previously, his video for ‘Walk Idiot Walk’ won their first rock video competition.
Right now, his video for ‘I Bet That You Look Good on the Dance Floor’ is in the grand final of the 4th rock video competition. Please take a minute and go vote. The competition ends on the 17th and, when last I heard, he was trailing behind the other competitor.
Google Idol seems to have changed their name to ‘bopsta’ because of the rather problematic fact that they didn’t have permission to use ‘Google’ or ‘Idol’ in their name. It’s true that people did often incorrectly assume that they actually had something to do with Google, other than using their video service for free hosting.
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