"Tron Legacy" (2010)

Tron Legacy has opened to a fair degree of criticism. Nobody disputes the high caliber of design, and praise has similarly been directed towards the Hans-Zimmer-meets-dance-club score by robotwin duo Daft Punk, a natural fit for the neon-ensconced universe of Tron if ever there was one.

But the biggest thing holding this movie back from being more than a guilty pleasure is the script, penned by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. That fact is a bit of a letdown for me as a LOST aficionado, as their names will be familiar to fans of the show--the writing partners had their names on no less than twenty episodes of the series, in addition to serving as executive producers for much of its run. Where LOST had hugely imaginative big-picture stories to tell and had fun filling in the details, with Tron, it's quite clear the creative forces behind the project spent a lot of energy creating a world like you've never seen before, and relied on a very bare bones, How-to-Write-a-Screenplay story arc for the narrative.

I know, I know, I'd never guess they were writers either.

Such an imbalance of immense production resource and impotent writing is nothing new in Hollywood. In fact, it's endemic. Transformers, and in fact Michael Bay's entire oeuvre, is my go-to example of this imbalance.

I have never been a believer of the "it's just a popcorn movie" defense. I hold up Raiders of the Lost Ark and RoboCop as examples of "popcorn" movies that can be so much more than anything Bay has managed to conjure -- Raiders, for its bar-setting craftsmanship, and RoboCop, for its pitch-perfect blending of 80s genre convention and subversive social commentary. It's borderline offensive, frankly, that a studio will spend a half-billion dollars on a movie like Avatar. For all that film's technical showmanship, it featured a script that seemed like a second draft--its characters so archetypical, its political commentary so ham-fisted it made this dyed-in-the-wool liberal want to drive a Humvee through a tolerance rally on his way to the shooting range.

Pictured: Last of the Na'vi.

So why, then, did I not feel I had been patronized by the formulaic storytelling of Tron: Legacy? Why did I, in fact, really enjoy it?

Frankly, I was "bought out" by the allure of its images, its sounds, and its movement. But let us not forget that cinema is an art form that first and foremost is about the arousal of the senses. Unlike Avatar's techno-organic world, which echoed everything in the last decade already seen in the Star Wars prequels and Lord of the Rings, or the brutishly ugly, overripe world of Transformers, the screen has never seen anything that looks like Tron:

The movie's other saving graces come from the moments of lightheartedness that alleviate the grim mood practically mandated in genre pictures these days. Brides' Flynn has sort of morphed into Lebowski's 'The Dude' since we last saw him--it's been several years since I watched the original Tron, but I don't recall Flynn possessing the same kind of "New Mexico zen" vibe that Bridges gives off here, as he calls people "Man" and waxes philosophic on the "biodigital jazz" of his electronic world.

It's a good choice, though--Bridges' persona has become almost intertwined with that career-defining character, and it gives him a chance to stand apart from the techno-bobbleheads that populate Flynn's creation.

Olivia Wilde makes Quorra an alluring, tomboyish pixie of a sidekick, and for whatever faults the script posesses, the authors wisely never let her and protagonist Sam achieve the perfunctory late-second-act romance. Sam, for his part, is a stony-faced and rather forgettable character--the same kind of devil-may-care-rich-kid-who-learns-to-make-a-difference (spoiler alert) that is everywhere in these movies these days. No joke, before Tron started rolling, the trailers for The Green Lantern and The Green Hornet demonstrated virtually identical protagonists. (Some have pointed out the shot-for-shot similarities between how Lantern's backstory and Iron Man's backstory are established in their respective trailers.)

He makes this face in 99.8% of the film (margin of error ± 5%)

If it does come to pass that this most improbable of films--a mega-budget sequel to a once-forgotten children's movie from a quarter-century ago--garners a threequel, it will have to do better. The permissiveness granted by sheer novelty will have worn off. But for now, it's nice to go back to the Grid.

P.S.: So, this is a movie called "Tron," right? And the titular character is only in it as a second-string supporting character until he makes a crucial, if unexplained, decision late in the third act? And we never get a good look at his face? Umm, okay. Someone probably should have made a "note" to the writers on that one.

"Chinatown" (1974)

One of the most emotionally-engaging and structurally proficient scripts I've ever seen. The finest balance of Hollywood classicism and European art cinema any director has ever conjured. A story rooted in the geographical psychology--and the pulse--of Los Angeles, something far too rare in the pictures considering the industry's location.

Chinatown is, quite possibly, the greatest movie I've ever seen.

Is it my favorite? Having seen it only in bits and pieces prior to Monday, when I watched it for the first time from beginning to end--it is far too early to make such a claim. But from a critical perspective, it's safe to say it's one of the best. 

The story is referred to on the Netflix sleeve logline my DVD came in as "onion-like" in its layers' revealing. And the Red Envelope's not kidding. The story takes many twists and turns, but it never feels forced or convoluted. It manages to surprise without making each surprise seem gimmicky--a tough thing to accomplish.

The direction by a post-Manson, pre-fugitive Roman Polanski is A-class. It's easy to imagine that Polanski's worldview, just a few years after the savage murder of his pregnant wife, had a profound impact on the pessimistic outlook of Chinatown. In fact, Polanski butted heads with producer Robert Evans over the film's dour (but unforgettable) final few pages. Polanski, thankfully, won out, and "Forget it, Jake...it's Chinatown" entered into the American popular lexicon forever. 

In fact, it's hard to find a single thing not to rave about in this movie, except maybe Faye Dunaway's occasional propensity to chew the scenery a bit. But one signs up for that when one watches a movie with her in it, anyway.

The "neo-noir" begins with Chinatown, released about fifteen years after the classical noir period ended with Touch of Evil (1958). Anyone with an interest in film history or style would do well to watch these two movies back-to-back. It's amazing how Welles' Evil is so clearly an "old" movie--a movie rooted in the classical aesthetic and ideology of the Hollywood studio system (its 'latin' protagonist, for example, is portrayed by a laughably-darkened Charlton Heston). In less time than it's taken us to go from Jurassic Park to Avatar--A period of technical, but not much artistic, progress--Welles' generation had passed the torch to the Copollas, Polanskis, and Scorceses of the 1970s.

A corpulent Welles in Touch of Evil (1958)

Chinatown is particularly impressive as a neo-noir because it does not rely on superficialities to reveal its heritage. Many films have attempted to follow in the noir tradition by reverting to black-and-white, high-key, Expressionist cinematography and hard-boiled dialogue. While there is something to be said for that kind of pageantry (2005's Sin City springs to mind), Chinatown manages to channel the spirit of unease and corruption endemic in the Angelino landscapes of classic noir, while invigorating the form with the aesthetic advances of 1960s and 70s "art" cinema of Europe. (To Evans' credit, this was why he hired a European director to reinvent an American genre in the first place.)

Lastly, I am a sucker for any piece of art which spotlights the history of Los Angeles. The Southland is my home, but as a place, it doesn't seem to garner much artistic attention. I feel as though the other great cities of the world--New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Rome--are all better-represented historically in fiction and nonfiction. Los Angeles, I suppose, lacks the romanticized history of a Rome or the visual theatricality of New York. But Los Angeles, more so than any of those other places, feels like it harbors a million secrets, a million stories left to be told. The greater Los Angeles area is a sandbox for the imagination--the deserts, beaches, mountains, and spread-out suburban jungle in the middle provide unlimited opportunities for an individual to get lost. Far more so than those other cities, I feel, Los Angeles provides a richly diverse array of stories to be told. (In the last decade, perhaps only 2000's Mullholand Drive and 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas take full advantage of L.A.'s mythological potential.) This film, however, interweaves the political history of L.A.'s landed gentry into the fiber of the movie--Chinatown simply could would not make sense anywhere else.

A million and one stories are out there.

Chinatown: If you've never seen this great American film, watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again.

Hiatus over (?)

Phew...the last few months have been crazy busy. But with a couple weeks' of vacation time before the winter intersession, I might actually have a bit of free time to post again.

Quick update

Well, I've been crazy busy with an internship and school starting back up.  But I'm putting together a larger team to keep up work on One of Them in the coming months.  Should be a lot of fun!  Also trying to sell my car and get my web/graphic design venture, Modern Mythos Design, up and running.  Spread too thin with not enough hours in the day, I can tell you that.  But by year's end I will have made progress towards all these goals.

By the way, in case you want to check it out, ridingthb.us is the home of Bookmarket, a little web depository of interesting links and bookmarks I've found online.  Check it out!

First Day of Production!

Saturday, August 21st was the official first day of production on "One of Them."  Shooting commenced in Long Beach, California. Christina Zabala, Gabe Reed, and Scott Leonard broke ground on their characters.

To celebrate, here's the first official screencap from the upcoming Modern Mythos release, "One of Them":

What could be scarier than a newsman's naked calve?  And what nefarious entity is responsible for the displacement of his desk, forcing him to work on the ground like an undignified first-grader?  Well, for all that and more, you'll just have to watch the first episode of the five-part web feature, "One of Them," written and directed by Gary Iacobucci from a story by Gary Iacobucci and Alex Moskowitz.

And for those of you who've never seen the teaser trailer for the movie, here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd9wsKwwEes

Subscribe to ModMythMedia on YouTube and follow on Twitter to keep up with the latest information about the project.

New YouTube Channel: Youtube.com/modmythmedia

New video update.  Check it out!  (and subscribe):

An update from Italy

I've been in northern Italy for the last three weeks. I've finally gotten a chance to upload some photos of my experience thus far to Flickr. Check them out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyiacobucci/sets

They're not super-organized right now, but they give an indication of what kinds of things there are to see. It really is a beautiful country.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Modern Mythos Media Special Announcement - "One of Them"

Today, I want to take an opportunity to announce something very special.  It's the reason why I started this blog, and it's the reason why it says "Home of the '1 for $100' Movie Challenge" up there on the banner.

It's called One of Them, and it's our first feature film here at Modern Mythos Media:

Modern Mythos Media presents: "ONE OF THEM" The story of a world very much like our own. Just don't say that to the Greys, members of an ostracized minority whose presence in the world is a source of confusion and mystery. What does it mean to be a Grey? What makes some people turn? Can humankind and greykind live together in harmony, or is the apocalyptic Separation foretold by extremists on both sides destined to occur? "One of Them" is the first feature film from Modern Mythos Media, a ragtag independent production team located in LA/OC, Southern California. More information will soon be available online. Until then, follow the ModMyth blog at www.modmythmedia.blogspot.com. Thanks! ONE OF THEM. Coming 2011.


The "1 for $100" initiative is exactly what it sounds like.  An opportunity to show that it is possible to make a compelling, interesting, fresh story with only the barest of financial investments.  This will be a test of using only what is absolutely vital, making a movie out of necessities and not frivolities.  


Of course, we will be updating the progress of production (right now, we're still in the writing and pre-production stages) as we go along.


It should be a lot of flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants fun.  I hope you come along for the ride.

The End (LOST Spoiler Warning)

...and then Bob Newhart woke up and said, "Honey, you won't believe the dream I just had."

After 120 episodes comprising a narrative of nearly 90 uncut hours:

LOST is over.

Sure, there will be bonus features on Blu-Ray boxed sets, ancillary merchandise and games and conventions and re-broadcasts and special re-releases and never-before-seen bonus things for years to come, but for all intents and purposes, the narrative I've been following my entire adult life is complete.  

Viewers across the globe are in a state of quasi-mourning, myself included--especially given the bittersweet nature of the show's final hour.  Yet there is also a sense of relief.  For three years now, we've known how many episodes we had left to go and were counting down the clock.  Yet, as "The End" reminded us time and time again, it was time to "let go" if we wanted to ever be able to move on and manifest our own destinies.  

I will remember LOST for many things.  For being compelling, smart entertainment that was fun and engaging.  For being the only TV show I've ever watched first-run from start to finish, anxiously awaiting the fall return during summer hiatuses.  For being a pastime I could watch with my dad, and later my girlfriend, and have it be something we all enjoyed for once.  The series' reach was certainly broad, even if it required an intense amount of patience and cross-referencing to follow over the span of six years.  But, perhaps most importantly to me, it made me realize the power of good storytelling.  It made me further understand the kinds of yarns I want to weave, and has affected my world profoundly.

I feel the greatest feat Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were able to pull off, however, was that for all its head games and twists and turns, it all made emotional sense in the end.  That's what the finale had to do.  Without having read too much of others' reactions, I already know the complaints "The End" will receive, because they're the complaints that were going to be lobbed at it regardless of the final episode's decisions.  "It didn't answer my questions," some will say.  "What was the deal with Walt?"  "Who built the statue?"  "What is the Island?"

But those aren't complaints about "The End," those are (sometimes valid) criticisms of LOST in general.  People looking for specifics to all the mythological underpinnings of the Island are bound to be disappointed.  The creators have been saying for years that there will be unanswered questions, and I'm okay with that. Because it gives us something to continue to talk about for years.  And, in the end, those little backstory questions don't matter.  The rules and reality of the time and space that LOST takes place in has an internal working logic to it.  I imagine you can figure out the rest of the history for yourself if you think about it hard enough.  

What this episode did do, however, was answer a question on an order of magnitude so much higher than any of those that I think most people never even bothered to ask it:

"Why does any of this matter?"

"The End" took a cast of characters who, despite having their entire lives put out on display for all to see, had at times seemed like chess pieces in a supernatural board game, and once and for all made them human.  Because we saw what it really meant to be "Lost," and of course it didn't refer to them being stranded on an island.  It was a kind of lost that we all are, and it was a harrowing, sobering final message for the show to impart.  But an important message, about how we ought to define ourselves and what we ought to pursue in our own lives.

If you've seen it, you understand what I mean.  If not, I'll just proselytize for a moment and say, get the DVDs.  Watch the show.  It's fun, it's freaky, but at the end of the day, when the chips are down and shit gets real, it'll leave you feeling moved in a way that transcends polar bears and smoke monsters.

Longtime viewers will look at today, the day after the final episode sailed off into the horizon, and feel two ways.  Either a piece of themselves has just left them, or a piece of themselves that has been gestating is now complete.  I encourage everyone to see it as the latter.

"Network" (1976)

I am publishing a short review of every movie I see.  There's a lot of movies out there I've always meant to get around seeing, but that I keep putting off for one reason or another.  Time to put that Netflix queue to good use.

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this any more!" - Howard Beale, UBS News Anchor and Mad Prophet of the Airwaves

"You are television incarnate...indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy.  All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality." - Max (William Holden) to Diana (Faye Dunaway), his coldly opportunistic lover

Clip #1 from "Network" - Howard's Announcement

I'm always a sucker for good political satire in a movie.  Dr. Strangelove is arguably the most famous, and most lasting, of these.  But Network feels more attached to the modern crisis of media exploitation and conglomeration than any thirty-four-year-old movie has any right to.  

It's the story of Howard Beale, a news anchor for a fictional fourth network in the late 70s, who's been put out to pasture.  His on-air retirement/suicide announcement shocks the nation and renews interest in the Beale brand.  An up-and-coming, cynical producer (Faye Dunaway) sees the potential for a ratings boon, and soon the network's flagging news division has been transformed into a for-profit, infotainment circus spectacle with a mentally-unfit Howard Beale as the paranoid ringleader.  The only problem is, his particular brand of crazy rings a little too true for the interests of the network heads...

Network is sublimely biting and over-the-top in all the right places, and theatrical and wordy like few motion pictures are (or ought to be, for that matter).  It's amazing to watch this movie and realize that author Paddy Chayefsky gets it -- He knows the Year Two-Thousand-and-Ten, even if he was speaking from across an ocean of time.

Watching this movie made me realize that our last decade has been the companion piece to the 1970s--a decade of economic malaise, frustration and mistrust of government, and embarrassing political fumbles at home and abroad.  The 1960s had lots of tragedy, sure--but there was also a list of tangible achievements, great gains made in society and technology that by the end of 1969 made it all somehow feel like the sacrifice had been in the service of something bigger.

The 1970s didn't have that.  Neither does today.

Network is a fine-tuned, very well executed and eminently watchable movie.  Funny and ridiculously excessive exactly how it needs to be, but not so much that we lose our connection with the characters.  The movie asks the right questions, points its finger at the right entities.  The camerawork is all it needs to be, nothing more, nothing less.  The film is carried by a pitch-perfect script and a remarkably talented cast (William Holden, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall...)

Clip #2 from "Network" - The Howard Beale Show

Some criticism has been lobbed at the movie's use of long-form, theatrical-style monologue, often delivered by some red-in-the-face character in a moment of hotheadedness.  (Film critic Pauline Kael subtitled her review, "Hot Air.")  But the frustration that carries through these characters is at the very essence of the movie's spirit.  And it's a frustration shared by many, including myself.

"Raising Arizona" (1987)

Starting today, as part of the blog I will try to publish a short review of every movie I see.  There's a lot of movies out there I've always meant to get around seeing, but keep putting off for one reason or another.  Time to put that Netflix cue to good use.



Raising Arizona follows a revolving-door inmate, H.I. "Hi" McDonnough (Nicholas Cage), who marries the policewoman (Holly Hunter) tasked with taking his mugshot at the onset of his every stint in the slammer.  H.I. gives up his old ways to be with his new love, and things are good until the couple discovers they can't have children.  So...they steal one.  See, the Nadiya Suleman of 1987 Arizona is all over the papers, and the couple figure some folks just have too much of a good thing, while others have none.  When the enterprising father of the missing youngster discovers one of his infants missing, he places a $25,000 reward on the baby for a safe return.  Needless to say, hilarity ensues and everybody learns a lesson about the meaning of love.

I can't recall exactly why this one had been on my list so long.  I think it's because I've really enjoyed every Coen Brothers movie I've seen, so I've meant to go back to the beginning and catch up on their whole oeuvre.  Raising Arizona was leagues apart from what I thought it would be.  I didn't realize how "broad" it was.  Lots of backwood hick characters and goofy humor.  A far cry from the subversive, Gen-X sensibilities of The Big Lebowski or the biting satire of Burn After Reading, Arizona's particular brand of laughs is more Farrelly Brothers than Coen Brothers.

Pictured: The wild Cage-creature in its natural habitat

Still, their undeniable talent as a writer/director team elevates the movie above what it might have otherwise been.  The film comes to life whenever The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse is featured.  Initially a component of H.I.'s daydreams, the Biker--looking like he just burned down Thunderdome--tears through the southwest on a hell-stallion bike outfitted with grenades and an assortment of knives.  This way in which this strange figure intersects with the plot at large, other characters in the story, and ultimately with H.I. himself, makes us question the reality of the movie's world, and the reliability of the narrator up to this point.

In particular, one quick and ambiguous revelation near the film's climax may speak volumes about what the character is supposed to represent in the mind of H.I.  Deeper critical readings aside, the biker figure's scenes are always the most inventively shot, giving the writer/directors a chance to stage some elaborate fight choreography and spaghetti-West camerawork.

The actors portray their respective characters with plenty of gusto, particularly Cage's repentant, sad-dog crook and Hunter's heart-meltingly doe-eyed wannabe momma.  Still, I feel the film would have been stronger had the directors sought to highlight the more earthy, meaningful qualities of the underlying story by directing the performances to be a little more...nuanced, I suppose?  I just know that an hour and a half of The Flagstaff Hillbillies started to wear a little thin on me.

All in all, it's worth a view, for sure.  The film picks up around the halfway mark, once all the teams' motivations have been established and the film's MacGuffin is firmly in play.  But it's definitely a  sophomore effort that pales in comparison to their diverse body of work that was yet to come.

So, this happened today.

I used the wrong length clipper attachment.

Awesome.

Just a quick, enigmatic post: Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ezZgAl6aN8&sns=em

A week with my iPad

I figured after a week with an iPad, it was time for a few initial impressions. Does it live up to the promise?

In a word, yes.

One of the biggest questions I get at the Apple Store from customers is, "What's it for?" In other words, most people have an idea of what it can do, but why would they use this instead of a laptop? What can a laptop do that the iPad can't, and is there value in owning both?

To understand the iPad, you have to go back a few years. Around the time the iPhone came out and revolutionized touch-based devices, Asus launched their extremely popular eeePC line of tiny "netbooks". These devices, much smaller, lighter, and cheaper than a full-on notebook PC, were popular for their portability and disposability. They were sluggish doing anything beyond basic word processing, emailing, and light web browsing, but Asus correctly figured that that's what most people spend most of their computing time doing, anyway. I was graciously given an eee 901 by Sara for school, and have loved it--much better taking that to school than a 15" MacBook Pro, full of delicate components and a $2000 loss if anything were to happen to it (the Asus cost $200, for comparison).

Not long after, the tech industry began to wonder when Apple would get in on the act. But Big Steve publicly decried netbooks on multiple occasions, saying Apple didn't know how to make a sub-$500 computer that wasn't "a total piece of shit." (His words, not mine.)

See, Apple's MO has been to wait to do something until they can "do it right." But once they do, they usually blow the competition out of the water, or so many people believe.

But netbooks tend to cannibalize sales of more expensive, more profitable devices. They're built on razor-thin margins. And that's not how Apple has been known to make its money, as a self-styled "premium brand." Apple would wait until they could perfect a device that would do what people do on netbooks (and better), but limit its uses strategically so that one would still at the end of the day need another computer to experience its full benefits.

The iPad, then, is Apple's netbook-that's-not-a-netbook. It's got what's to love about a netbook:
- Cheap: You can have one for $500.
- Light: it weighs a pound and a half.
- Speedy: Its flash memory means the computer boots up and shuts down in seconds.

It also fixes a few problems with netbooks:
- Despite the fact it's a virtual keyboard, in landscape mode the iPad is as roomy to type on as a full-size laptop.
- The battery lasts, real-world, ten to twelve hours. This is largely due to what the iPad *doesn't* do (run a full-on operating system, multitask, run Flash)
- Surfing and watching video on the iPad is fantastically speedy. On a netbook, it's a "tap down, wait two seconds for the page to follow" affair.

But it's not perfect. What needs fixing:
- There needs to be a soft-keyboard solution for text-modifying shortcuts, i.e. the equivalent of Command-i for "italicize" on my Mac, or Command-b for "bold." As it is, you have to hope the app developers included a menu option somewhere to let you italicize, bold, or underline, and when it's there, it's anything but intuitive. I imagine pairing the iPad to a Bluetooth keyboard fixes this, but I haven't tried it.

- Needs a direct way to add new words to the spellcheck dictionary. I think if you type something enough, it'll eventually learn it, but in the meanwhile, you have to let it auto-correct and then re-type it the "wrong" way a thousand times before it stops fixing it.


At the end of the day, most of the iPad's lingering issues revolve around productivity use, which is what it's mostly not been designed for. Where it shines is in using it for a few minutes of downtime, every hour, to check your email and surf, then throw it in your sling bag and go about your day; then come home at the end of the day and read it like a magazine while heating up your dinner. Throw a TV show on or read a book on it in bed, then plug it in to recharge the battery that got your through the whole day.

-- Posted From My iPad

Oh, and the whole Flash issue? Totally not a big deal. I can count on one hand the number of times I've hit a wall while surfing, now that most the sites I visit have HTML5 compatible video in anticipation of the iPhone/iPad onslaught of visitors. Just waiting for The Daily Show site to go iPad-friendly now.

Why We Need Places to Care About

So life as I (and most Americans) live it is pretty much upside-down, in terms of our relationship to our sense of place.

Don't you feel weird when you walk into the middle of a suburban residential street, a little like a child stepping on the carpet while playing "Floor is Lava?"  I know I do.  How can all that the land directly in front of my place of residence, all that blacktop space, be so alien and off-limits?

Just a few minutes ago I saw a kid on the corner of St. College and Imperial shouting his lungs out while headbanging on a guitar.  It was a truly surreal moment, for his wailing had to fight so much just to be heard over the din of cars at the busy intersection, and I only heard it because my window was rolled down.  This wasn't like a bustling downtown metropolis, where street-side performers routinely sing for passerby, an open guitar case standing in for a tip jar.  Only a madman would attempt the same in this space, a world where everyone is locked inside their own private automotive sphere, and unshaded pavements and choking exhaust fumes render pedestrian travel a virtual non-happening.

Well, this guy's little display made me think of a very humorous (but very enlightening, and a little maddening) lecture given at a 2004 TED Talk in Monterey.  The speaker is James Howard Kunstler, author and noted proponent of "New Urbanism"--the idea that the rapid and vast emergence of post-WWII suburban sprawl must give way to a more local, more interconnected and convenient kind of urban life.

Watch a few minutes, at the very least (Click to play; language NSFW):

It's hard after watching that not to look around and see exactly what he's talking about.

Someone told me just the other day, "There's gotta be more to it than this.  Wake up, drive to work, come home at dark, go to sleep, get up and do it all over again--I can't, I can't keep doing it. There's got to be more."

Well, there isn't, so long as we continue this way of life.  And the stage we play our lives out on is more than just superficial set dressing--its form and utility directly reflects the lifestyles we lead, and determines what is and is not possible while living them.

Borrowed Inspiration

Why I'm Stupid Enough to Buy an iPad

So, I have this water bottle, right? I've been filling it with $20s since late January.  Saving up for an iPad.  No, really, I'm doing this the way an elementary school kid saves up for a new Nintendo DS.

I figure that way, if I don't pull anything out of my bank account, I can't be struck with that tinge of "I don't actually need this product" anxiety.  I'll tell myself that I've had months to save up and to think about whether I really want to buy one, and therefore if I do, it will have been a responsible, mature exercising of my American-born purchasing power.

But then, iPad doesn't do Flash, does it?  And it's still a closed-development environment, just like the iPhone and the iPod touch.  Why buy a keyboard-less non-computer that doesn't do Flash, when I could buy a high-end, full-feature netbook for that price?

Well, as anyone who's surfed the net or watched a favorite TV show on their iPhone knows, there's something about the intimacy of holding your content in your hands, and interacting with it directly, without the abstraction of buttons, that goes far beyond the thirty-year-plus convention of a keyboard/mouse/screen interface.

Pictured: M-Edge "Trip Jacket" for iPad

My iPad will be like a universal journal.  It will be where I scribble notes for story ideas when they hit, where I go for immediate web references and location information (In lieu, as a Verizon customer, of an iPhone).  It will be my entire media library, more than my iPod touch can hold.  And it will be a fantastic canvas for creating digital illustrations on the go:



Games like this one will be experiences on this device, when you put your headphones in and get sucked into them.

Plus, my god, what a relief it will be to forgo the physical textbook in favor of digital, searchable, weightless copies.  iPad, where were you when I was in junior high?



Lastly, I'm going to Italy for a month this summer, and bringing this instead of a laptop will be much preferred.

In fact, the only things it won't be are 1) A way to watch Flash-only video sites, 2) a torrent-grabber, and 3) a mobile video editing suite.

So, yes, I am dumb enough to buy an iPad.  :)

Take two thrills and call me in the morning

Last night's Lost, "Dr. Linus," finally signaled our penetration through the rocky outer crust of the final season and the beginning of our descent into the gooey, warm nugat center of the final hurrah.  I'll explain what I mean by that, but in order to do so I've got to take you into the way back machine for a moment:

Season three began with a half-dozen episodes focusing on a part of the ensemble, locked up in the Others' jail.  This was a slow and frustrating start for an already frustrated audience, and contributed to the bad press the show got at that time, right?  But eventually, once we got to know this new cast of characters our protagonists were now immersed with, the season's tonal and thematic arcs became clear--we knew which direction the season was heading, what story it was trying to tell.  By the final four episodes of season three, many viewers were saying the show had gone from its worst place to its all-time best place.  And that was before the season concluded with perhaps the most pivotal conceptual invention in the show's history. (Immortalized, of course, in Jorge Garcia's "Geronimo Jack's Beard" podcast.)

Look at season five.  The first few episodes were a little tough to swallow--not poorly-written, mind you, but just not very rewarding (at least not until watching through again on DVD, knowing where they were headed).  It just consisted of a LOT of time-jumping, leaving audiences scratching their heads as to whether the potential for Back to the Future plotlines was really justified this late into the series, or if it was just the show jumping a Dharma-branded shark.

But, just like in season three, about a third of the way into the run, the reason behind the season's central conceit starts to become clear.  The writers knew the viewers desperately wanted to know more about the nooks and crannies of the island's history--What happened to the Dharma Initiative?  What was the story with Rousseau?  So instead of just telling it to us, they made those events a pivotal component in our character's lives, by putting our characters in the history.  Now, what was became what is.  

And it made for some of the most satisfying long-term payoffs in the show.  Payoffs that could never happen in a series that wasn't as uniquely dense and interconnected as Lost, such as all that Miles and Daddy Chang stuff towards the end of the season.  When Chang's hand was crushed during the Incident, it was one of those little details that showed the master plan for the season--now, all those Lostpedia-obsessing fans who wanted to know why Chang appeared to have a fake hand in the first Orientation film could have an answer.  (More mysterious: Why, in a later-dated Orientation film, Chang's hand is A-OK.  Cloning experiments?  Casimir effect resulting in a duplicate Chang/Candle/Wickman?  Egregious continuity error?  Such little things will be the stuff fans argue over for eons.)



Now, season six.  The first batch of episodes has again left people mostly scratching their heads.  Sure, the flash-sideways are an interesting idea, but it seems to many that we just don't have time for these shenanigans this late in the series, with so many questions left unanswered.  But last night's Ben-centric "Dr. Linus" was without a doubt the most compelling use of the format so far.  We still don't know how, story-wise, the two timelines are going to inevitably merge.  Are we seeing a twisted fulfillment of the promises Smokey has made to the castaways who've joined his effort?  I tend to think so, but we'll see in time.  All I know is, this season has finally started.

It's just too bad the intended oomph of that final, "Oh, it's on!" scene was completely debilitated by the goofy periscope gag.  Austin Powers called, it wants its bit back.

This is a test

of the emergency blogging system.

Come on, say it with me, just like every year: "The Oscars Are a Joke."

Source: Kotaku - Oscar Winning Film Features Xbox 360 Time Travel

"In five years time everyone will remember Avatar and many will remember Basterds. The Hurt Locker is one of those Oscar winners where people will ask, 'How the hell did this win?' and those of us around at the time will say, 'Well, it had a woman director, we were at war at the time, it was all very political.' It stinks."

- Posted by Agumen on Mar. 8, 2010

Well, I think "Agumen" was primarily complaining about The Hurt Locker stealing Avatar's thunder.  I really couldn't care less about which half of that divorcee couple walked away with the Oscar last night; I just think District 9 really got snubbed.  

I suppose it's a combination of 1) timing -- D9 is halfway around the world as far as Oscar's concerned by now; and 2) genre -- There was only room in His Golden Generosity to flaunt so many CG creatures in one season, and most of it went to That Movie With the Blue Native Americans and the Mustache Twirling Rovian Villain.  


But District 9 is a prime example of what I consider to be the best potential in Hollywood filmmaking: A strong, pertinent message in a clever, sellable storyline; good characterization; and the ability to take something utterly unreal and make it relatable.  Because that movie's not really about space-lobsters hanging around Johannesburg too long, is it?  Granted, it may have gone a little action-heavy in the third act, but how many times in a year does a movie put a grin on your face like that without making you feel like you're watching a guilty pleasure?


Those are the kinds of movies I want to make.  Movies like Children of Men, which similarly got no love in 2007, despite that film's groundbreaking cinematic techniques and amazing technical artistry.  Even without the compelling premise, the super-taut script, the pitch-perfect performances, or the visionary directing, Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men was near-perfect on just about every technical level.  Man, I love that movie.

All I'm sayin' is, District 9 deserved to be nominated in a category that it didn't have to share with Michael Bay's Big, Wet, Explosive Robot Dream.