Film, technology, fun.
I’ve read a lot of different blogs lately about the new trailer for Peter Jackson’s upcoming King Kong remake. Many of them show the expected enthusiasm, but a good number of them complain about substandard CGI, bad acting from Jack Black, and a “lack of originality."
To which I say: what the heck are you talking about?
Complaints about the Star Wars prequel trilogy I can understand. Those pictures sucked despite promising trailers and top-notch effects. (Though I will still defend The Phantom Menace as the sort of hyperactive kid’s flick that Lucas was born to make.) But to dismiss Jackson's cinematic career as a whole and to decry Lord of the Rings as "a fluke" based on 30 seconds of a trailer that doesn't happen to fit your preconceived notions of an updated classic? Some folks could do with a trip to the dictionary, where they might find themselves listed under the word "hubris."
I'm not saying Jackson can do no wrong (personally I couldn't watch more than about the first thirty minutes of Meet the Feebles), but sometimes the internet buzz machine really gets me down.
That doesn't mean the right's new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.
CNN has a story on the updated Teddy Ruxpin, that scary animatronic bear who used to move his jaw along to audio casette tapes. Now he's all tricked out with digital cartridge technology that holds his audio and animation data. Get this: the new version retails for $69.99, the same price the original bear sold for in 1985.
The brothers Chapman (Matt and Mike) seem relatively at home on stage at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin. At first Mike forgoes his provided chair for the relative comfort of the bare stage, chatting with audience members and occasionally with the puppet version (voiced by Matt) of their beloved creation: Homestar Runner.
I’m no Homestar aficionado, but I’ve seen a good number of the cartoons (which play solely on the Homestar Runner web site ) over the last five years and I once played the stupid Trogdor video game until my fingers cramped up. (Fortunately it was a really slow day at work.) The people who fork over ten bucks each for the Homestar Runner Live show, however, are hard core. They can belt out the lyrics to “Everybody to the Limit” and reference obscure characters like Thnikkaman without hesitation. On Friday night as we stood in line (before realizing that our tickets were for Saturday night) we even spotted a guy dressed as Homestar. In other words, they are as frighteningly obsessive as any other rabid fan community, so the show is energetic, silly, and fun.
The show opens with a DV-cam sketch of Homestar Runner enjoying the sights of Austin, complete with a stop by the Frost Building—or rather, a view of the Frost Building from far enough away that Homestar is able to use it (in forced perspective) as a nosehair trimmer. Matt and Mike greet the crowd with friend & collaborator Ryan Sterritt in tow and, after a couple of quick introductory live-action bits (including a bit of Strongbad Karaoke), the house settles down for an evening of communal cartoon viewing on a big screen instead of the usual computer monitors. No matter that we’ve seen nearly all of the episodes before (though there are a few unreleased goodies). It is the experience of sharing the Homestar obsession with each other and with the creators that matters. Everyone there speaks the same twisted language—and if you aren’t drinking the HR Kool-Aid when you walked in (like my wife Christina, who’d never seen a Homestar cartoon), well at least you know who Trogdor is when you walk out.
Homestar Runner is one of the first motion picture success stories purely of the Internet. Amazingly but perhaps understandably, the Chapmans see no reason to change that. It’s likely that they could parlay their animation success into a TV series or even a feature film, but they claim to prefer the more spontaneous feel of the web. So long as there’s a new Strongbad cartoon every week or so, who’s going to argue?
If you read technology industry news with any regularity, chances are you’re going to be hearing a lot over the next few days about Apple’s announcement that they will begin using Intel processors in Macintosh computers, switching away from the PowerPC processors manufactured by IBM. (Apple, Motorola, and IBM joined forces in the early 1990s to design and manufacture the PowerPC chips.) There’s a lot of gossip and misinformation about what this really means, but here are the highlights as I understand them. These are in no particular order.
Apple achieves speed parity with Windows manufacturers. This is probably one of the best reasons for the switch. Apple has long had to combat the perception that its computers were slower (when in fact they were often faster) because the clock speeds at which PowerPC chips run are often lower than their Intel counterparts. Apple called this the “megahertz myth” and did their best to educate users to the fact that what actually mattered were the number of instructions a processor could run per second. Unfortunately the perception remained and the megahertz myth became a gigahertz gap, especially when IBM couldn’t produce PowerPC G5 chips at the clock speeds they claimed they would be able to, on the timetable they predicted—to the point that the fastest Macs actually were slower than the fastest Windows machines. (How they compared in actual efficiency of the operating system and software performance, I don’t know.) Perhaps more importantly, IBM has yet to produce a G5 that runs at a temperature low enough to be installed in a laptop computer. With the switch to Intel chips, Apple can match any competitor’s chip speeds.
In theory, an Intel Mac could be dual-booted into Windows. This is perhaps the most exciting aspect of the switch for me, and I suspect for most users once they really think about it. Previously, if you wanted to run Windows on a Mac, you were stuck with the awful Virtual PC emulator to do so. With an Intel processor in the box, there’s no reason that Apple couldn’t allow for Windows to also be installed to run natively on the computer. You couldn’t run them side-by-side of course, and there are some definite technical and financial reasons Apple might not want to allow such a thing. If they did, however, it would be a lot easier than it is now. There are already versions of Linux that run on Apple hardware, so it’s not as if no one’s ever thought about doing this before.
When it comes to documentaries, schoolchildren are a safe bet to evoke empathy and to get laughs. Mad Hot Ballroom manages to do both without insulting its subjects too much. For that alone the director deserves much praise, but also for reminding us that, in a world of increasing cynicism and despair, small things can bring hope. Lives can be changed by a minute nudge from the right person at the right time.
AOL hosts the newest trailer for Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which debuts July 15th. In related news, Johnny Depp has apparently completed his transformation into Parker Posey.
Proving that movie geek avarice knows no bounds, Anchor Bay has announced yet another release of Evil Dead 2 (haven't there been like eight of these already?), this time in a "Book of the Dead" edition similar to the BOtD release of the first film. Apparently this time the book will come with a sound chip that makes it scream. Call me when they make a version that bites you unless you say "klaatu barata nikto" before you open it. Via Cinematical.
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]