Yay, more snow! We had a few more inches of snow overnight and it was the wet, sticky kind driven by strong winds. The result is magnificently beautiful.
Now go away winter!
Movie Review: 300: Rise Of An Empire
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 1/5 stars
Bottom Line: Look, it’s gratuitous,over the top blood and long-winded soliloquies with excessive use of slow motion. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, it was called “300”.
So there was this empire and it, like, rose or some junk? The title of the film may be “Rise of an Empire”, but it’s not at all clear which empire is rising or how it is rising. The movie ends very abruptly in the middle of a pitched battle which I’m assuming you are supposed to believe that the Greeks were going to win, but it’s not really clear.
A lot of “Rise of an Empire” plays exactly like the original “300” movie did. Almost every scene is very stylistic and shot in high contrast so every ab and muscle and piercing and gush of blood shows in great detail. It is kind of beautiful, but it’s also empty. I enjoyed the original “300” for its stylistic elements, but a sequel just shows how shallow those stylistic elements are. “300” was a one-trick pony and “Rise of an Empire” is the exact same pony performing the exact same trick only with a change of costume and a different script and on a boat.
I got suckered into watching this movie after seeing a preview featuring a pretty neat origin story of Xerxes. I had assumed that we would see a more in-depth look at Xerxes the man-god in the movie itself. Expecting depth from this movie, however, is like expecting a mosquito not to bite. The preview turned out to contain 90% of all of Xerxes’ involvement in the movie. The rest is just him standing around and looking big and beating up a girl. This movie may hold the title for making the lamest man-god ever filmed. What’s even more amazing is this movie was “based” off of the Frank Miller comic titled “Xerxes” and barely featured the dude.
The only interesting thought I had about the movie coming out of it was a chicken or the egg thought. The final naval battle between Greece and Persia features a plan that is eerily similar to the Battle of Blackwater from “Game of Thrones” where all the boats perform a 40 car pileup and people start jumping on the boats from land and fighting. I wonder if this movie ripped off George R. R. Martin or if George R. R. Martin ripped off Frank Miller or if there was actually a Greek battle that featured such an outrageous tactic and everyone ripped that off.
The Guacocalypse Is Nigh!
Chipotle caused quite a stir recently when they filed their annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Part of every filing is where the company lists a series of possible issues that may affect the company’s ability to provide their expected services. For the most part, it’s pretty boilerplate stuff. So when a company deviates from that boilerplate material you can bet someone’s going to notice. And that’s just what Chipotle did.
As part of the risks that Chipotle may face, they stated that “increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change” may lead them to “choose to temporarily suspend serving menu items, such as guacamole or one or more of our salsas, rather than paying the increased cost for the ingredients.”
It’s a guacocalypse!
After much media attention, Chipotle claimed that they don’t know what the big deal is about and it was just another general “what if” and there is no danger of their guacamole going anywhere any time soon. It’s still a big deal, though. Chipotle is not some fly by night operation. They’re a well recognized and insanely popular national food chain. And they filed a report that they are concerned about global climate change and it’s effects on their business model. That’s news.
Book Review: Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars
It is the near future and copyright laws have gone from insanely restrictive to ludicrously restrictive. It is a world where the Internet is not a luxury but a necessity. Family’s lives are ruined because their children illegally download copyrighted materials which causes them to lose their Internet connectivity. Teenager Trent McCauley’s obsession with remixing the works of a famous writer/director/actor into new art gets his family kicked off the Internet for a year. Guilt-ridden for destroying his family’s livelihood, Trent runs away to London where he meets like-minded kids as he learns to survive on the mean streets of the city.
It is an interesting premise for a book and about the first half or so is lots of fun as we follow Trent’s adventures in London, learning the science of begging and finding the best dumpster food in the city and navigating the finer points of squatting in abandoned buildings. That’s all pretext for the main story which is, unfortunately, Trent and company’s attempts to overturn the egregious copyright law which caused Trent’s family to lose their Internet in the first place.
Copyright law and a free and open Internet are topics that are often covered by Cory Doctorow and what he has to say about the topics is well worth reading. They should not be the subject of a young adult fiction book, however. The thing is, all the copyright stuff is incredibly boring. You can try to hide your copyright talk in the various misadventures of teenagers all you want, it doesn’t make it any more interesting to read about.
Aside from the copyright stuff, there are some interesting topics covered from what art is to what ownership means to living on the streets of London to the hosting of pirate cinemas in the sewers to the prevalence of the surveillance state. The problem is the rest of it is just kind of thrown in there and nothing really ties together. Even the ending seems kind of just thrown together. When your bright idea is showing a pirate remix on the side of Parliament to help sway the vote of a law meant to make copyright law less egregious, you may not have thought your ending through enough.
Movie Review: Non-Stop
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars
Bottom Line: A fair to middling Liam Neeson movie with just enough entertainment to keep you engaged until the wheels come off near the end.
Some movies have this great premise that sounds like a good idea on paper, but once you start exploring the premise you find there’s not much there. Sometimes, you still decide to make the movie because you’ve got Liam freakin’ Neeson as the headliner. Thus “Non-Stop” was made.
The first and second acts of the movie are fairly engaging. Act one introduces us to alcoholic air marshal Bill Marks (Liam Neeson), a no nonsense, leave me alone type of man with a soft heart that peeks out every once in a while. The movie very effectively portrays this through a series of encounters with passengers that Bill runs into while navigating through the airport on his way to his assigned plane. Since the majority of the film is going to be shot on a tube containing 150 passengers, this was a very clever way of introducing all the major players as the story unfolds.
The story unfolds in act two as a mysterious person on the plane starts texting Bill letting him know that a person is going to die every 20 minutes unless $150 million is deposited in a bank account. What follows is a just plausible enough series of events where passenger after passenger does indeed die as foretold. There is some suspension of disbelief required for this portion of the film, but it is still enjoyable as Bill tries to ferret out the hidden hijacker and turns his suspicions from one passenger to the next.
Things fall off the rails pretty quickly in act three as the evil doer is revealed and describes a motive that can only be described as laughable and which calls into question all of the previous incidents in the second act that were passable assuming the foe was at all intelligent or sane. The movie ends with the bad guys getting what they deserve and a harrowing plane landing Bill saving the life of a little girl thrown in just for…something.
There are a few things that I think would have saved this film from sub-mediocrity. Number one on the list would be some sort of grander conspiracy than the ridiculous plot that unfolded. Something that tied the hijacking to events occurring off the airplane. Number two would be if they went completely the other direction and actually made Bill the hijacker. This would not have been as difficult as it sounds since there was a question as to whether that were true pretty far into the movie. Number three would be if there were mother-fucking snakes on this mother-fucking plane.
Movie Review: Robocop
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars
Bottom Line: A not bad remake of a classic uber-violent 80’s revenge flick.
This may be a better movie than I think it is. Nostalgia may be getting in the way. The original “Robocop” was a much better story than this one. It’s not that the stories were much different, it’s more that the telling of the story was much more compelling in the original. The most glaring departure in the new film is the complete lack of black humor that made the original so memorable. But enough about comparing the two.
Or not. One place where the new “Robocop” shines over the old is with the fictional robotics company OmniCorp (OCP in the original if I remember correctly). Michael Keaton plays the genius CEO and Gary Oldman plays the head robotics scientist. The interaction between the two of them is top rate. It is really the only acting in the movie worth talking about. What they have to say is actually interesting as you have the struggle between the CEO wanting to make money with military contracts and the scientist wanting to use the robotics for more benign purposes.
There was a lot of the story that didn’t really make sense. It wasn’t clear why they had to remove as much of his body as they did except for a really cool and creepy effect. One of the main fighting scenes were completely avoidable by any criminal with even moderate intelligence. It was still a cool scene, though. I also wish they used the hulking ED-209 robots to greater effect than they did.
“Robocop” was an ok movie. It’s completely skippable, but if you have a special place in your heart for the first movie, it’s worth going to see this one if only for the enjoyment of discussing the difference between the two.
Book Review: Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars
A quick note on translation. Obviously, “Faust” is not originally an English text. This means that someone has to take the German original and translate it into English for those of us too lazy to learn another language. This version of “Faust” was translated by Bayard Taylor who did an outstanding job. You can get it off of Project Gutenberg for free. How in the world one takes a text written in verse in a different language and translates it into English while being able to keep the rhyme and the cadence AND hold true to the original meaning is beyond me. I stand in awe. Of course, I don’t have much to compare it to considering I’ve not read “Faust” before. Maybe all are equally as good.
“Faust” is more a beautiful work of art than it is a good story. In fact, the story is pretty crappy. Man has almost everything. Man wants more. Man makes pact with devil. Man wants girl. Devil helps get girl. Man destroys girl and her family. Man lives happily ever after. Poor Margaret. A feminist book this is not.
Everything around the story is just phenomenal, though. There is scene after scene of fascinating characters with entertaining dialogue. Most of the time, it is quite easy to follow the unfolding of the story despite the verse. Some of the free verse stuff can get a little thick and difficult to follow at times, but poetry’s not meant to be easy. Those times were trying, but they were minimal.
It is clear why “Faust” is one of those books that has lasted 200 years. It is a timeless tale woven into an artistic tapestry. While reading, I couldn’t help but think how much more beautiful the original German version is. I am sure that countless people were drawn to the German language just by the power of reading a translation of “Faust” alone.
Here’s an interesting “Faust” fact that I got from Wikipedia. In the original version of “Faust”, while Margaret is rotting away in jail after accidentally killing her mom and drowning her baby, a chorus of angels cries out that Margaret is condemned – “Sie ist gerichtet!”. Goethe quickly changed it to Margaret being saved – “Sie ist gerettet” – which makes much less sense to me, but was apparently a crowd pleaser. What amazes me is how similar “gerichtet” and “gerrettet” are to each other. You could probably easily mistake one for the other if not pronounced clearly. Maybe for Germans being saved and being condemned are pretty much the same thing.
Oppressed Majority
Here is an interesting and well done video. It takes the male dominated world and flips it on its head so women are dominant. It’s slightly NSFW for some quick but very necessary breasts.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4UWxlVvT1A]Mmm, Food Desserts…
Oh, wait, no, that’s food deserts. My bad.
A food desert is an area of residential housing that is underserved by traditional grocery store but often over-served by fast food stores. These tend to occur exactly where you’d think they’d occur; in poor neighborhoods. Being poor and living in a food desert makes it almost impossible to make healthy food choices. Now, you would think that a great solution would be to bring grocery stores to this area. A few studies have recently been released that show when a grocery store finally comes to a food desert, the dietary habits of the residents don’t really change much. What’s going on here?
Well, first off, it’s only a couple of studies so there may be certain things not controlled for, but the studies certainly pass the smell test. So why would poor people choose to still go to the fast food joint when there’s a much cheaper and healthier alternative right next door? If you took $10 worth of groceries and $10 worth of McDonald’s stacked side by side the choice seems absolutely preposterous. You can make many meals out of the groceries but only one from the McDonald’s. Look closer, though. See the problems? That McDonald’s value meal is ready to eat right now. No cutting vegetables or measuring out spices. No stirring of sauces or browning of meat. No washing of dishes or cleaning the kitchen. It takes five minutes to get fast food while cooking and cleaning can take an hour or more. And that’s just one out of three meals. We are so used to having time that we don’t realize how much of a luxury time actually is. And it’s a luxury that the working poor can not afford. There are second jobs to get to and precious sleep to catch up on. How are you going to throw fresh food into that mix?
So if grocery stores aren’t the answer, what is? I’ve always been a fan of something along the lines of a slow food co-op. The basic idea being that there is a kitchen somewhere that can cook very large portions of healthy meals and local residents can come in and pick up these meals for slightly less than what you’d pay at a fast food restaurant. The kitchen is local, the workers are local, the patrons are local. All that plus the locals can eat healthier and save slightly more than they had been with their fast food choices.
It’s a very simple idea. Of course, how to implement something like that is well beyond my pay grade. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Churches would probably be a good bet. It’s times like this when I wish I knew someone who actually knows something about these things.
Chromecast
I had an Amazon gift certificate and was annoyed at running a cable between my tablet and my TV (first world problems!) so I decided to pick up Google’s Chromecast. After playing with it for just a little while, I have to say, it’s pretty awesome.
What you need: A television with an extra HDMI input.
Optional: A USB port on the television. This is used to power the Chromecast dongle, but it also comes with a standard plug adapter. Though you’ll probably need an extension cord as well unless your outlet is within six feet.
Why Google is awesome: I was in love with the thing before I even plugged it in. Why? Because Google included a velcro cable tie with the USB cable so you can easily secure the excess cable. It’s a small little detail, but can you name another company that does this? Secure, neat cabling is very important and leave it to a company with server farms the size of a warehouse to realize that this extends to the home as well.
The device itself is a paltry $35. This may be a limited time offer to increase demand. Setup is a breeze. The device itself is a tiny 3″ or so dongle that plugs into the HDMI port. You attach the micro USB side of the cable to the dongle and the standard USB side to either your TV or power outlet and you’re ready to rock. Set your TV input to the HDMI port your Chromecast is attached to and it’ll start up and look for a device attempting to talk to it through a WiFi connection. I used my phone to set it up. I imagine the conversation goes something like this:
Chromecast: Hello, I’m here! There are so many WiFi connections here, won’t anyone come and talk to me?
My phone: Psst! Hey, over here. I’ll talk to you.
Chromecast: Um, I hear you, but I can’t seem to talk to you. It says I need a password.
My phone: Oh yeah, that. Here you go.
Chromecast: Why thank you. Well, look at that, I am hopelessly out of date. I’m just going to download an update and you come talk to me again when I’m done. Bye.
My phone: Hello! You’re done! Let’s watch a movie.
Chromecast: You got it buddy!
I’m sure I’m somewhat wrong with the handshake protocols, but my way sounds cooler than any dry technical information.
Then, it’s just a matter of launching a Chromecast capable app on your phone and telling it to send the output to the TV instead of your phone. Having Netflix, I used that. There is a Chromecast icon that you touch and then choose your Chromecast ID from a list if there happens to be more than one. The video goes to the television and you can then use your phone as a remote control. Easy peasy. The video and sound quality is superb, though it will take a while to get to the full 1080p HD as the video buffers.
The remote control functionality is still a bit wonky on my Galaxy S4. After only playing with it for a little while, I have found that sometimes it works just fine and sometimes my phone seems to lose the connection to the Chromecast thus losing the ability to pause the action even though the TV still plays the show just fine.
Amazon doesn’t have an app to use yet, but you can still stream their stuff using the Google Chrome browser with the Chromecast extension installed. Setup is a bit of a pain since you have to make sure that Silverlight (what Amazon uses to stream videos) is disabled and then tell Amazon that you want to use the Flash player instead. If you don’t do that, you don’t get sound. Even with that, you still don’t get the high quality high definition like you do with apps that have native support for Chromecast. Amazon promises to change that in the near future.
There are a bunch of other apps that currently support Chromecast, including HBO Go and Pandora with a bunch more promised in the future as the Chromecast development kit has just been released to the general public. As far as I know, all smartphones and tablets can be used with Chromecast and your PC can as well but only using the Chrome browser as described above.
All in all, for just $35, the Google Chromecast is well worth the money if you want to stream Internet to your television. It’s certainly more of an in between technology than a device of the future since we are quickly coming to the time when all televisions will be WiFi enabled. But if you’re not in the market for a new television, this is a simple and cheap way to extend the lifetime of the television you currently own.