DRM is doomed to fail. Unfortunately, the majority of the movie companies and record labels still think it’s the best way to “protect” their media.
Anti-DRM T-Shirt Design Contest
Category: movies
dare deny spontaneous human combustion?
Bullcrap?
That’s what 17-year-old Jacqueline Fitzsimon thought in 1985 before she burst into flames in front of witnesses, her life extinguished 2-weeks later.
It’s rare, but the mechanism is described in long, scientific-sounding words on Wikipedia:
… burning of a person’s body may occur without an external source of flammable ignition.
… many theories and hypotheses have attempted to explain SHC’s existence and how it may occur, some grounded in current scientific understanding. The two most common explanations offered to account for apparent SHC are each discussed below: the non-spontaneous “wick effect” fire, and the rare discharge called “static flash fire”.
Personally, I think it must have something to do with radio waves.
Some of the American Presidential candidates have denied spontaneous human combustion — but they’re the same ones who deny evolution and gay soldiers.
(Not “you don’t have to be straight, to shoot straight” Hillary.)
I first learned about the phenomenon from an important 1984 documentary.
Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.
Eddie Murphy – best yet to come?
For the most part, I feel Eddie is a super talent, wasted.
I’d probably like The Nutty Professor and Norbert. But I couldn’t bear to watch them.
But having seen Eddie interviewed on the excellent TV show Inside the Actor’s Studio, it dawned on me that his best movies are in the future.
I think he’ll be like Bill Murray. Another aging comic genius who has gotten even better in later years.
Certainly Murphy was amazing in Dreamgirls. He should have won the best supporting actor Oscar.
Dream Girls should open doors for him for more serious roles than as a donkey in Shrek.
Looking back at his career. …
Murphy was unbelievably good in the Saturday Night Live TV show. Fantastic in the first Beverly Hills Cop.
That about it, for me, until the painfully excellent acting he did in <a href=”Bowfinger with Steve Martin.
I love the premise of that movie!
Beyoncé – part of the solution?
I never thought much of Beyoncé until lately.
Just another pretty … face, … well m(ass) marketed by the mostly dirty-old-male recording industry. Everything wrong with the status quo. Right?
Maybe I’m wrong.
She could be part of the solution.
Certainly she was great in Dream Girls.
Her song Crazy in Love is one of my favourites of all time.
Now she’s putting together an all-girl band for her upcoming B’Day World Tour. (Doesn’t sound like a bimbo boy toy of Jay-Z to me.)
Older women, with few exceptions, get no respect in commercial pop music. Why doesn’t Joni Mitchell have the same profile today as Bob Dylan or Neil Young? Joni’s just as talented and a lot easier on the eyes.
Rock videos today are almost all soft porn. This can’t last forever. Where do they go next?
I like what Beyoncé is doing. She’s sending up her sexy image in videos like Green Light. (I love the high, high heels.)
Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.
Not the greatest song, I admit. But Robert Palmer is grinning from the great beyond.
Come to think of it, Robert Palmer’s classic Simply Irresistible is hard to take seriously any more.
Click Play or …
Watch Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love, as well.
I love the Bond girls
Just saw the NEW James Bond movie Casino Royale.
It’s no remake of the original, rather a gritty prequel to the origins of 007.
Eva Green plays the role of Vesper Lynd — Ursula Andress in the 1967 version. (Ursula Undress in local speak at my Jr. High School.)
I loved Eva Green as a Bond Girl. And Caterina Murino is another worthy addition to the harem.
There is no controversy about Bond girls. It’s all good.
A Bond Girl is a character or actress portraying a love interest or sex object of James Bond in a film, novel or video game. They typically have names that are double entendres, such as “Pussy Galore.”
Bond Girls are often victims rescued by Bond, fellow agents or allies, villainesses or members of an enemy organisation; sometimes they are mere eye candy and have no direct involvement in Bond’s mission, other Bond Girls play a pivotal role in the success of the mission. Other female characters such as Judi Dench’s M and Miss Moneypenny are not typically thought of as Bond Girls.
The role of a Bond Girl is typically a high-profile part that can give a major boost to the career of unestablished actresses, although there have been a number of Bond girls that were well-established prior to gaining their role. For instance, Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman were both Bond Girls after becoming major stars for their roles in the television series, The Avengers. Additionally, Halle Berry won an Academy Award in 2002 – the award was presented to her while she was filming Die Another Day.
That new Bond — what’s his name — was OK too.
On my gymnastics blog I posted the amazing free running chase scene video.
movie – The Brothers
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud did the seemingly impossible with his films The Bear and The Brothers. His footage of wild animals in nature — how did he get this stuff?
Simply amazing.
A surprisingly good film, too. Though not recommended for very young children.
Doing for tigers what The Bear did for Grizzlies and Kodiaks, Two Brothers offers lush adventure with a message that anyone can take to heart.
French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud directed both films, blessing them with his keen eye for beauty and a love for wildlife that’s as impassioned as it is infectious.
This time, the adorable critters are Kumal and Sangha, sibling tiger cubs in French Indochina circa 1920, separated when a treasure-hunting adventurer (Guy Pearce) inadvertently leads them to capture. He makes amends by defending their right to freedom, but before that can happen …
He also directed the excellent Quest for Fire.
Calgary – “brutal, depressing, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually degrading”
Funny, we were just commenting on how gorgeous it is out the back yard today.
But a new documentary called Radiant City trashes the suburbs in general and the Calgary suburbs in particular.
To see the trailer click PLAY or watch it on Google Video.
Looks very interesting. I want to see it.
“80% of everything that has been built in North America was built in the last fifty years and most of it is brutal, depressing, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually degrading.”- That’s James Howard Kunstler gleefully munching the Calgary scenery in Radiant City, a new film about what’s happening on the edge of town. It is a sort of docudrama following the Moss family through their daily life of commutes and gymnastic classes and shopping at the power center, with commentary by the always articulate planner Ken Greenberg, new urbanist Andreas Duany, philosopher Mark Kingwell and, of course, Jim Kunstler at his best.
It truly does show the suburbs at their soul-destroying worst, “overlaid with zombie monoculture. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family call it home.” We call it sometimes very funny, sometimes overlong and draggy, sometimes as Vanessa Farquarson of the Post quoted, “almost too true to be real.”
There are not too many entertaining nights out to be had watching movies about urban planning. We hope this will make it to the States; everyone concerned about the future of our cities should see ::Radiant City.
Radiant City: A Documentary about Suburban Sprawl (TreeHugger)
movie – The Fog of War
I only knew “McNamara” from the reference in the Simon and Garfunkle song:
I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored.
I been John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d.
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I’m blind.
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, ’cause I’m left-handed.
That’s the hand I use, well, never mind!
The first album I ever bought was Simon and Garfunkle.
Though I grew up in the Vietnam era, I was never a vocal protester. My mind was on local things. Sport. School. Friends.
Later I became strongly anti-war. (that’s a separate post)
I’d heard great things about a documentary called The Fog of War and finally got around to downloading it.
It’s fantastic.
Robert Strange McNamara is one of the most interesting and compelling figures in modern history.
He was hand-picked by President Kennedy to become Secretary of Defense in 1961 and was a senior advisor on US policy through until he was fired (or quit) in 1968.
McNamara recommended the Bay of Pigs invasion and was at the table during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three times the USA came close to using nuclear weapons.
McNamara has said that the Domino Theory was the main reason for entering Vietnam. His resolve to “win” the war waned, especially after protester Norman Morrison set himself on fire Nov. 2, 1965, dousing himself in gasoline, holding his baby girl, in front of McNamara’s office. (The baby was saved.)
Though McNamara was “the chief architect of the Vietnam war”, he eventually came to believe it a mistake. LBJ lost confidence and let him go.
Film maker Errol Morris had a fantastic story. And did a fantastic job of editing. I recommend it to one and all.
Though many of the “lessons learned” could be applied to Iraq, McNamara has consistently refused to comment. And he has never apologized.
The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
The Fog of War – Wikipedia
You can watch the movie free in a tiny window with streamed video.
movie – The 300
I cannot recall more astonishing, exciting movie trailers than for the soon-to-be-unleashed film The 300.
Computer generated images meld with (old-fashioned) human actors.
The “look” is great.
Based on the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is a ferocious retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite.
watch the preview: Apple – Trailers – 300
McAcademy Awards – Apocalypto wins big
Mel Gibson may be a racist drunk, but he is also one of the most important film makers working today. (Hate the sin, love the sinner.)
Talk about shattering the Hollywood blockbuster formula!
Apocalypto is great. What a film.
Too bloody? Perhaps. But depictions of the “noble savage” historically have erred on the noble side. Fact is that North American indigenous populations were more savage than noble.
Life was hard on this continent.
No doubt Forest Whitaker will win best actor. For me he will always be Idi Amin just as Ben Kingsley will always be Gandhi.
Helen Mirren deserves the statue for “best actor female”. (What is wrong with “actress”, again?) But for her career body of work. Mirren’s performance in The Queen was very good, but not nearly as good as Forest Whitaker.
Jennifer Hudson’s natural, believable performance in Dream Girls will still be studied by film students in 50 years. No one will remember Mirren in The Queen.
But Rudy Youngblood wins the McAcademy Award for best actor. He was unbelievably good in Apocalyptic, McBest Film of 2007.
Rick McCharles 