I was watching John Carpenter’s classic film, They Live and I thought this was a perfect clip from the movie to show how advertisers used to (and continue to) fail their customers by not truly helping them — especially when we humans find out. This scene involves our main character who discovers a special pair of sunglasses that allows him to see the hidden messages placed their by aliens — I figure it was an amusing shot at all the bad advertisers out there who only focus on shoving their message in our faces. In all mediums too (sans the internet)!
Archive for the 'Movie' Category
As you may already know, I love animation and when I ran across this … I had the gut feeling that it was brilliant. Directed by Jeff Lew, the Lead Animator of Matrix Reloaded who quit his job and pursued his dream of creating an amazing looking film — Killer Bean Forever. All I have to say is that I am definitely looking forward to watching this film whenever it is out …
Kudos to you Jeff for all that effort and time! I will be one person to definitely support your film!
I just recently dished out a chunk of change on Samurai 7, an amazing re-telling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai which was later made into the popular western movie The Magnificent Seven. I’ve only watched the first episode of Samurai 7 and I am hooked, by the way they introduce the farmers from the little village and a few samurai themselves. The plot I think is generally the same but I am sure that the 7 DVDs versus the 1 DVD original will provide a whole lot more depth to everything!
Aside from Samurai 7, my friend Dan passed on a link to a fantastic looking animated film called Tekkonkinkreet. I am really not sure what that means but the trailer reminds me of a blend of Japanese anime with some international animation styles that I have seen before at the Animation Show.
Check out the trailer below or at the site. The trailer website has better quality if you’re willing to wait a little longer for the file to load.
Yesterday a few friends and I went up to Waterloo’s Princess Cinemas to check out the Animation Show Year 3. I was definitely impressed with this year’s line up that Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt put together from around the world. There was only one animated short that was really weird even though the animation itself was quite impressive. Here are some clips of the first Animation Show:
Hopefully next year the Bloor Cinema will host the Animation Show for Torontonians to enjoy!
So I’ve finally finished the first course to web programming with many more to go! I just hope I’ll have more time and energy when I take the second course. But then again, it will likely be a little more active rather than reading and writing.
I survived 20 nights of zombies, can you?
So with some time to breathe, I am wasting time and reading blogs or catching up with whatever I haven’t had time to do over the past week (*ahem* … studying?). So I wander over to Darren Barefoot’s site again and he found yet another great game! Not as addictive as the last one, but nonetheless pretty spiffy, I guess it’s a good start in preparing for Resident Evil 3. Darren Barefoot mentioned 28 Weeks Later (the sequel to 28 Days Later) and I had no idea they were bringing out a sequel so it sounds interesting, however I hope it will be better than the first one. I thought 28 Days Later was rather bland, mainly after the few stranded survivors were brought to the safety of the remaining bunch of “elite” and “disciplined”soldiers at some camp who thought they were the sole survivors and apparently there were no other women in the world (or so they thought … even though it’s only been 28 days and apparently they see a female survivor and all moral judgment fails?).
Speaking of zombie games, Darren inquired on his blog as to whether or not there are any good zombie games out there, ones that aren’t first person shooter. I ran across this article from IGN, listing out the Top 10 Zombie Games (PC and console). I hadn’t heard of a number of those games, but Hunter: the Reckoning is one heck of a great co-operative zombie killing game. It actually deserves to be better than listed as #10. Dead Rising is listed as #1 and according to my friend, it seems like it is worth checking out. Another new game on the horizon that may be of interest is Left 4 Dead, which I am not sure whether will be a first or third-person game but it has potential.
I noticed IGN listed #4 as Zombies ate my Neighbours which I had totally forgotten about but would love to play again! Sure it’s old, but this game is a classic! I wonder if there’s a port for the PC or something. Screenshot below courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.
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On a more productive tone, I ran across an interesting article by Mark Hinkle of Enterprise Open Source Magazine that noted a question that a guy by the name of William Hurley of posted concerning the ability for open source software to continue to be truly viable. Hurley makes a good point that there are a lot of people and organizations who simply leech off of the open source community and re-sell the software as “improved” on their own without contributing these improvements back to the community. The idea of open source is about working together to develop a better software that everyone benefits from. There are likely features that are likely to be initially proprietary and held back, but these should be released into the open source realm after a time period. At least, that’s my perspective. Other less major features, but more so fundamental improvements on the backbone or structure of the software in development should be released immediately. In agreement with Hurley, those who hold back their own developments thinking that it is beneficial from a personal or proprietary standpoint should realize that the return they get from releasing their “improvements” into the open source realm is substantial because fellow contributors will be able to help build upon your idea and improve or enhance it. You gain, they gain, and you gain again. It’s almost cyclical. I was about to say circle of life, but perhaps that may be a little grand…
I ran across this site the other day that posted a large number of different posters from the movie Howl’s Moving Castle, Hauru no ugoku shiro in Japanese. I was really impressed by the vast differences in marketing, design and culture that each poster depicted in rather subtle and bold forms. It also reminded me of the book publishing industry and the sales of international rights that takes place annually. I know Disney purchased the rights to release this movie in North America at the very least.
Lots of posters from Nausicaa.net
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I highly recommend it particularly if you enjoy animation or are a fan of Japanese anime. However I would recommend watching other earlier works by Hayao Miyazaki such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.
Click here if you can’t view video directly.
Spent most of the week with a similar feeling
The past week in the office was spent fixing computers. Oddly enough, I had to spend the weekend fixing computers. Possibly the best outcome out of the weekend was the fact that I finally purchased Office Space. Which I am sure holds great parallels with all urban peasants and web slaves!
In other news, for those who don’t use Gmail already and are stuck on the forsaken hotmail. Google Engineers made a great homemade puppet driven video on YouTube (which they own of course). It is a prime example of how small and medium sized businesses can be creative and market their service or product effectively. It is by no means a simple and easy task, but it is definitely a genuine alternative to pay-per-click ads and expensive ads in traditional media.
Click here to check out the video that the Google Engineers put together.
I thoroughly enjoy animation. All kinds of animation. Why? Because there is so much more imagination involved! Imagination that I lack and I figure this serves as fuel for the imaginative soul…
So when I heard that the Animation Show would be coming to Waterloo, I am jumping on the chance to go!
My friend and I went to check out the first year when the Animation Show was only showing at the ByTowne Cinema in Ottawa. Think of it like the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. Smaller independent theatres essentially. Anyways, it was a big hoot when we went to check it out, pretty inexpensive too and popcorn was reeeally inexpensive by comparison to Cinplex Odeon or Famous Players. Since Year 2 didn’t make it out to the golden horseshoe area, we never had the opportunity to see it, but now that Year 3 is moving inwards to Waterloo … I figure we can’t miss it this time around!
I’ve always been a fan of various types of animation, but not necessarily Japanese anime … that is until one of my friends (Dan) introduced me to Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke which is a fantastic film with a very serious environmental and social critique. Don’t get scared by that because it is actually quite the fun film to watch. After I had the opportunity to watch it, I could honestly state that I am officially a fan of all types of animation!
If you have the opportunity to check out the Animation Show and see some independent animated shorts from around the world, do so. It is worth seeing at least once.
technorati tags:animation, imagination, anime, waterloo, independent, show, movie, cartoons, perspective, opinion, canadian
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