Review: Cowboys & Aliens

 Posted by on July 31, 2011 at 11:33 pm  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Jul 312011
 

I never read the comic book that Cowboys & Aliens is based on, but I think the premise is fantastic. Aliens among us in 1870. The movie starts out very much like a spaghetti western. Daniel Craig does a passable job as the movie’s version of Outlaw Josey Wales. Harrison Ford is the cranky cattle king. Sam Rockwell the nerdy barkeep. Olivia Wilde the mysterious woman with dark eyes and a distant gaze. Every cliche in the Spaghetti Western Handbook is thrown at us in about the first 15 minutes. But it works. It works because there’s never once a wink at the camera or a campy moment. They play the movie absolutely deadpan as if it is a serious Western movie.

The humor, such as it is, is very subtle. The aliens are rounding up people like intergalactic cattle herders. Lassoing them from their space ships above and taking people away like so much cattle. The aliens without spoiling too much are mucking about in the mountains of New Mexico for the same reason everyone else in the godforsaken town is mucking around in the mountains. There are horse/alien races. There are battle scenes that resemble a cattle stampede as much as anything else.  I really like the fact that the movie did not beat us over the head with the cowboys-as-cattle metaphor. It was just there for you to discover and recognize as you went along.

The aliens, of course, were ridiculously impossible. But so what? They were aliens. They were the bad guys that had to be Dealt With or they would continue to steal the women folk and scare the cattle. Or is it the other way around? Doesn’t matter. They were the bad guys.

The one really interesting thing about the script to me was how the aliens make their appearance in the middle of everyday live. The bad guys are being bad guys. The good guys are being good guys. The jerks are being jerks. And then the Alien Stuff happens and there is a brief alliance of humans against the aliens. And then at the end everyone kinda picks up where they left off. Yeah, everyone kinda learned their lesson and dealt with their stuff as part of fighting the aliens. But there was no smarmy Scene of Redemption at the end. Just more like a tip of the hat to what they’d all been through together.

And yes, there is riding off into the sunset. Deal with it.

Even though the movie is only rated PG-13, I’d say this is a great summer action movie for adults. I highly recommend it.

A Starbucks Frappucino for $0.32

 Posted by on July 28, 2011 at 12:56 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jul 282011
 

Squawk Fox had an article called “Make a Starbucks Frappuccino for $0.32” which kinda blew my mind.  The author reverse engineered the ingredients of the drink and found that the drink could be made at home for approximately 32 cents and the only secret/uncommon ingredient in the whole thing is xanthan gum, a food thickener that keeps the ingredients all mixed up.

I always knew that there was a huge markup on prepared food, but geez. I had no idea it was that much. I guess all that store front, that labor, corporate office, etc really adds up.

Stuff like that really makes me think about how much of eating out is all about convenience and social events more than actual sustenance.

I vaguely recall a passage in one of the Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galazy series that defined the three stages of civilization as 1) How Can I Eat 2) What Should I Eat and 3) Where Should We Go For Lunch.

Sounds about right to me.

Review: Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter

 Posted by on July 6, 2011 at 2:22 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Jul 062011
 

Between my recent honeymoon and long weekend over the Fourth of July, I had time to actually read a novel. Woo! Man, I really enjoyed it. I happen to be just about the world’s slowest reader because I don’t read 100% linearly. I’m always flipping back to reread references and make sure I get the gist of what’s going on. So I always struggle to make my way through novels.

But while on the honeymoon in Asheville, we stopped by Malaprops Books to browse around and pass some time. They had a whole bookshelf dedicated to top picks in steampunk, including one of the earliest examples of modern steampunk, Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter, the man generally considered to have coined the term, though he pushes back on that claim in the forward.

It has everything you’d expect from a steampunk novel, secret societies, mad inventors, flying machines, complex mysterious machinery, all wrapped up in a Victorian aesthetic. I particularly liked this novel’s point of view character, a man who inherits the clock shop and workshop of his father. As the novel opens we discover that a) his father was a genius at designing clockwork and much sought after and b) the son inherited none of the aptitude of his father. So Our Hero is fumbling through the novel trying to figure out just what exactly his father did and didn’t do, preferably before he gets killed, framed for murder, and/or the world comes to an end. Kinda fun all the way through witha surprise Happy Ending. heh.

First Impressions of Google+

 Posted by on June 30, 2011 at 1:10 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jun 302011
 

I like it. I have a feeling that someone who had never experienced Facebook before would be completely lost, just like everyone is the first couple of weeks they are on Facebook. But as someone who has used Facebook heavily for a few years now, the interface for Google+ was very intuitive.

Yes. Admit it, Google. It’s a Facebook clone. No amount of avoiding the “FB-word” is going to hide this very very obvious fact.

There’s two things I like about Google+ over Facebook. The first is aesthetic, the second is a truly fundamental innovation.

On the aesthetic front, the user interface is very clean, very white, reasonably sparse. More importantly, the things that you would want to catch your eye actually stand out and the things that are interface infrastructure are just a little muted. This makes the content, the posts from your friends, and stuff like that stand out and easy to read. There are also, no ads on Google+, which is surprising considering that Google invented the annoying context relevant ads on the right side, which Facebook has ramped up to an excrusiatingly annoying level.  Who knows how long Google+ will stay ad free. I hope forever.

The big innovation, IMHO, is Google’s concept of “circles.” In Google+ “circles” are collections of people you have an association with. it comes preloaded with some circles called “friends”, “family” etc. But it’s easy to create your own circles. So you can have as many circles as you want. For example, I have a circle for my friends who are into Radio. I have a circle for my friends who are into IT. I have a circle for my friends who are into Fandom. And while your friend can see that you have put them in at least on circle, they can’t tell which circles you have put them in. A good, diplomatic privacy preserving move.

So far Google+ Circles (or, as google would have it Circle+), sound pretty much exactly like Facebook Lists. But in google+ the circles concept is baked deeply into the whole thing. Most importantly, when you post something on your “stream” (their version of FaceBook’s “wall), you can choose which of your circles see the post. So it would be very easy for me to write the play list for my next radio show on my stream and share it just with my radio circle friends, and post a pointer to my latest IT blog post to my IT circle.  Using your circles as the basis of sharing permeates all of the various Google+ services.

As far as I know, you can’t do this in Facebook. When you post something to your Facebook Wall, you can share it with friends, friends of friends, everyone (public) or a list of specific people you specify. As far as I know, you can use a FaceBook list to sepcify who to share a wall post with.

It sounds like a small thing. But honestly it’s a fundamental difference that really improves the usability makes Google+ feel friendlier.

I expect it’s only a matter of time until Facebook catches up with Google Circles on this point. But I have to give google props for it.

Finally, there’s one more thing about Google+ that I like. I am not inundated with causes, groups, pages, comapnies, games, etc etc. So far, it’s just people and it’s refreshing. I suppose it’s just a matter of time before Google+ starts accumulating a layer of Facebook-like cruft. But for now it’s clean and simple and it reminds me of the early days of things like Friendster and LiveJournal. It’s a joy because you really feel like you are communicating with people.

Which leads me to the lesson learned. A big factor in making any of these social networking sites work is the control we exert over how many people we “friend” and share with. Now, I honestly enjoy reading posts from all my Facebook friends. Even the friends a barely know. I keep them on my friends list because their posts create a positive contribution to my life, even if in a small way. I weed out negative folks over time.  I intend to be even more vigorous about controlling the clutter of my Google+ experience and the “circles” concept is a great tool for doing just that.

So yeah, I like it.

Update: Ok make it three things I like. I haven’t tried it out yet. But there are items in the settings that give me the impression that when someone tags you in a photo or other item, you are notified and you have to approve it before it becomes public. Very Good Job Google! That is one of the features I’ve heard many people complain about Facebook. There are lots of folks who hate being tagged in photos in Facebook.

Art of the Title

 Posted by on June 15, 2011 at 1:19 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Jun 152011
 

Warning! Only visit this web site if you are prepared to be mesmerized for a few hours. Art Of The Title is a web site dedicated to movie title sequences as an art form unto themselves. I don’t know what else to say other than, you have been warned.

Review: Super 8

 Posted by on June 12, 2011 at 2:28 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Jun 122011
 
photo credit

Plain and simple, Super 8 is all about JJ Abrams trying to make a Steven Spielberg movie. It’s like he went through every single Spielberg movie, starting with ET, and made a list of every element that they have in common. Then he wrote a movie that’s a cross between ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the X-Files. The result is a visually fun popcorn movie that goes poof into a cloud of fallacious logic the minute the move’s last frame flickers dark. (Why _were_ all those dogs running away? )

But the movie has a saving grace. A big one. The child actors are fantastic, every single one of them. They work well as an ensemble. Their roles feel very authentic and true for kids that age and the dialog seems spot on. Very early on in the movie, I found myself more interested in whether the boy was gonna get the girl in the end than what the Big Mystery is.

A second saving grace for the move is that it is set in 1979 and they did a fantastic job of recreating 1979. The cars! The clothes! The music! The pot! That made the movie fun too.

This movie will never be called ET for this generation, but it’s a decent popcorn movie.

Review: Unknown

 Posted by on May 23, 2011 at 12:05 pm  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
May 232011
 

Went to see Liam Neeson in Unknown last night. This was a perfectly OK spy thriller. Lots of action, likable characters, a fantastic assortment of secondary characters and a plot that kept me guessing to the end. I especially liked the car chase scene in the heart of Berlin. I really liked the the Gina character played by Diane Kruger and my favorite secondary character was a former Stasi agent played by Bruno Ganz. I also liked the Bad Guy quite a bit but I’m not gonna tell you who it is for fear of spoiling the movie for you.  Highly recommend this movie if you are looking for an action spy thriller type movie.

Review: Priest

 Posted by on May 15, 2011 at 4:11 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
May 152011
 

Oh god, where to begin with The Priest. It’s like they took all the cool shit from Blade Runner, 1984, Batman, The Crow, all the Clint Eastwood westerns, Blade, Dark City, Constantine, and most of all, The Matrix, added gooey evil vampires, and mixed it all up together.And that’s the good parts of the movie.

And yet there’s a little voice inside me that keeps saying, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” 

So I dunno, If you go into it knowing that you’re gonna get not much more than cool action shots, fight scenes, and stuff blowin’ up real good, you’ll enjoy this movie just fine.

Review: Thor

 Posted by on May 8, 2011 at 12:39 pm  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
May 082011
 

Considering that Thor is a basically just a summer action popcorn movie, the movie was amazingly well thought out, visually stunning, and completely different from typical comic book movies.

At one point in the movie Thor says to a human that he comes from a place where “magic and science” are one and the same. And the move portrays Valhalla and the “nine realms” in a beautiful, eye-popping way. It looks vaguely steam-punkish at times, oddly mechanical and physical. Yet it’s also a place that defies the laws of physics in mind bending ways, beautifully rendered. 
I’m not an expert in Norse mythology, but it seemed to stay fairly true to the Nordic stories at least in terms of the personalities of all the gods. One of the things that amazed me about Thor is the portrayal of Thor and to the lesser extent Odin as noble beings. They wander around from scene to scene full of swagger, braggadocio, and arrogance that you would expect from gods. But at the same time, they live by Rules and Principles. And when Thor comes to earth, he is so noble, honor-bound, and, let’s face it, polite, that his arrogance turns into charm, and inspiration.  Even when he’s kicking ass, Thor exudes this sense of, Well, it’s our fate to be fighting now and I respect you on the battle field even though I’m gonna do everything I can to destroy you. 
There’s plenty of ass-kicking to be had. It wouldn’t be a summer comic book movie if there weren’t some amazing fight scenes. Both epic army on army fight scenes as well as go vs god fight scenes. This is done amazingly well considering that Thor, let’s face it, is doomed to fight with kind of a wimpy special power, a Hammer. 
Like all good comic book stories, and let’s face it, like all good myths. The flaws in the gods and their conflicts are all too human. The screen writers do a commendable job setting up the conflicts in this story, which is, when you strip away all the superpowers, is the story of a very dysfunctional family with enough ill-will and conflict to set us up for multiple sequels to come. 

John Adams on Politeness

 Posted by on May 6, 2011 at 2:09 am  cultural phenomena  No Responses »  Tagged with:
May 062011
 

I saw this posted to Instapundit a while back and had to post it just because I liked it so much.

“Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.”
– John Adams, in _A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law_ (1765)

As for me, I tend to be the avoid-confrontations-at-all-costs type. So this quote is a good reminder about the pitfalls of using good manners as an excuse to avoid tough situations.

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