General Archives - Page 42 of 42

2004 Favorites: Part II – Movies

I’m having a hard time narrowing down films I saw to just one favorite. Plus, I have yet to watch The Live Aquatic, and from what I hear it could be a real contender. I still need to see Team America as well. So now, in simple no-particular-order list form, movies I really enjoyed this year:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – I’m a sucker for art deco and old school pulps. Worth watching as a visual accomplishment alone.
Spider-Man 2 – Best comic book movie of the decade thus far.
The Incredibles – Pixar hasn’t let me down yet. Pure fun from start to finish.
Bubba Ho-Tep – I still need to buy this on DVD. Only Bruce Campbell could pull off a geriatric Elvis fighting a mummy and still make the movie heartwarming.

Yeah that turned out shorter than I expected. My memory really stinks. If anybody else remembers movies I saw and liked, please let me know…

I did see Oceans 12 tonight. Frankly, a bizarre movie. Fun to watch, but… well… bizarre again is the only word. Julia Roberts as a character as Julia Roberts meeting Bruce Willis as himself. My head asplode. Oceans 11 was far superior.

2004 Favorites: Part I – Comics

This is the first in a series of entries I’ll be making today, tomorrow, and beyond. 2004 gave me a lot of enjoyment in the areas of technology and entertainment. I thought it’d be nice to salute a few of them.

In case you don’t realize it by now, I read comic books. Contrary to widespread belief, it’s not all burly men in tights beating each other up. I enjoy a good Batman book as much as the next guy, but variety is the spice of life.

Without a doubt, my favorite new comic that I started reading this year is Losers. It debuted in 2003, but I’m a late adopter once again.

My favorite summary of the concept, from a review: “Losers is The A-Team, only, you know, not retarded.” It’s pretty apt really. Losers is an action movie distilled down to it’s finest moments, but not at the expense of characterization or plot. The titular losers are an elite covert ops CIA squad. The government (as it does from time to time in stories like this) screws them over and thinks them dead. Now they’re out to clear their name and bring down the mysterious ‘Max’ who masterminded their screwing.

Andy Diggle writes, and the singular named Jock provides wonderful stylistic art. Issues 1-6 and 7-12 are collected for sale very affordably on Amazon, and #19 just hit the newsstands.

It’s light fare overall, but it’s just so fun to read that I can’t resist the siren’s call.

Other comics i particularly enjoyed this year:

Y: The Last Man – Yorick is the last man on Earth after a plague kills all other males. And no, it’s not the wish fulfillment fantasy you might expect. Link.
Astonishing X-Men – Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly fame turns his writing chops on a New Classic X-men book. Link.
Ex Machina – A close second for my favorite of the year. The world’s only super hero runs for mayor of NYC as an independant… and wins. Politics combined with flashback super-heroics brilliantly. Set often against a backdrop of fallout from Sept. 11th. Link.

Gotta cut myself off here, I could go on forever. Tomorrow, on to either movies, TV, or books. Then at some point I’ll round up the greatest tech additions to my life this year.

21 Mo’ Tenors?

This week the library I work at during school breaks received a package of CDs as settlement from a class action lawsuit against the RIAA (they who famously sue music downloaders constantly) earlier this year. I myself received a check for $13 and change from the deal. But the bulk of the settlement was to be paid out in ‘donations’ to libraries of CDs.

Unfortunately, the RIAA apparently used it as a dumping ground for what wasn’t selling. Does a medium size suburban public library really need 7 copies of 3 Mo’ Tenors? Or 6 of the Doo Wop II box set? The list goes on… dozens were Spanish CDs for example. Obscure titles and artists (often in multiple copies) made up roughly 75% of the hundreds of CDs. Granted there were a few that patrons could conceivably want to check out (Will Smith, Jessica Simpson, etc), but even those were few and far between. And also don’t appeal to the whole demographic of our patrons. And no library has enough shelf space to stock 7 or more copies of an obscure CD wanted by a very small prospective portion of patrons. Ooh, alliteration!

And most of the usable ones were ‘cut’ with a notch in the top of the case. I’m told this means they were intended as promo CDs and not for sale. So the libraries apparently got what the RIAA couldn’t even give away…

Not that I would expect it to happen, but how great would it have been for the RIAA to let libraries have a say in what they got? A list to pick from at least? The goodwill from such a venture could have been amazing.

I can just picture some RIAA exec cackling madly and rubbing his hands while packing these boxes… another victory for The Man.

And this isn’t an isolated incident of a frankly bizarre shipping manifest. It’s been going on since at least June, when I remember seeing this article on MSN.

The librarians in charge of this area salvaged what they could, while the rest will be dumped in the book sale next summer. Perhaps some good can come of it after all.

Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock…

The first 24 minutes of the season premiere of 24 have appeared online somehow. I think they might be from the Season 3 DVDs, but don’t quote me on it. I won’t say where to find it, but if you’re smart…

Anyway, I’m excited. 7 months with no new episodes makes Chad go something something…

A bit of Christmas loot…

Belated Merry Christmas!

I do this self-servingly. If I make clear my interests I’m more likely to attract like-minded readers. 🙂

Got some very nice gifts from some very nice people. Here’s a list of some that come to mind:

Looney Tunes Golden Collection v.2 DVD box set
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II (Xbox)
Apollo 13
The Dave Barry 2005 Desk Calendar
Subscription renewal to Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Warm feather down blanket (stupid drafty Oakland apartment…)

Saw one side of the family today for the first time in ages. Grand fun all around. Tomorrow it’s off to the other side.
Probably will toss in a Christmas experience roundup entry tomorrow night.

update:
I also received the Queen & Country novel “A Gentleman’s Game”, by Greg Rucka.
And a gift certificate to Dave & Busters! Perhaps the perfect gift 🙂

Googlezon?

http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/ is a perfect example of the wonderful short form fiction possible only on the internet.

Not only that, but it’s interesting social commentary too. The flash movie has been deconstructed to death on a number of other blogs, so I’ll keep commentary to a minimum. But it brings up interesting issues of blogging ethics and responsibility.

What if the semantic web really does become a reality? Toss in blogging as an issue, stir, bake, and see what you get. Be careful what you wish for.

But it’s not all bad. There’s a grey mix of plusses and minuses at play in the ending of the clip that just reinforces the potential reality of the situation to me.

Either that or skynet has found a whole new way to build itself…