2009-08-31 Digital Breadcrumbs

digital breadcrumb 12:21 31/08/09
  • Good day. Did big grocery shop, hung out with Girl One, & watched films. Also, BBC repeating The Office with new interviews – spot on! #
  • Actually, a bit of unexpected Outnumbered & The Office really does do one a power of good. #
  • A question about new TV: Have I got settings wrong, or does one just have to get used to motion-blur with flat-screens? It is distracting. #
  • UNbelievable. I have a really bad feeling about this motion-blur issue. Does anybody have experience of dealing with it? #
  • @RedMummy The manual is next to useless, to be honest. It's for use across about two dozen different models. in reply to RedMummy #
  • @RedMummy I'm looking through those at the moment. Was just hoping someone on here might have experience that isn't buried in a forum. in reply to RedMummy #
  • @georgelondon I don't know if I'll ever get used to it! :( Am looking at AV forum, trying to work out some things to work out… in reply to georgelondon #
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2009-08-30 Digital Breadcrumbs

digital breadcrumb 12:21 30/08/09
  • @SorenLorensen Oasis were still together? Hm. I remember them releasing "Don't Look Back In Anger" & then it's all a blur. Not a Blur. #
  • Well, I've gone from good to frankly foul mood in ten short minutes. Not EVEN sure why. Looks like time to play games… #
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SD/Films – RockNRolla, Shoot ‘Em Up & Inglourious Basterds

SD/NP 15:25 29/08/09

Righto. So, three films in the last week, all of them guns and glory, and not one of them with a properly written title. Excellent.

Rock N Rolla

Rock N Rolla

I’ve got a soft spot for “Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels”, and I recall enjoying “Snatch”, though I’ve never felt the need to watch it again, but Guy Ritchie has become a bit of a figure of fun for the world at large in recent years, and that’s made it hard to see his particular ouvre of mockney gangster movies as having any authenticity any more, if they really had any to

begin with in the first place.

I guess that’s why I hadn’t rushed to see “Rock N Rolla” when it came out. I’d heard only bad things about “Revolver”, and can be suggestible about such things.

It’s a shame, really, because “Rock N Rolla” is quite fun. Granted, it’s got a similar convoluted caper plot to “Lock Stock…” and “Snatch”, and does about as much to realistically represent organised crime in London as “Oceans Eleven” does for career thieves. Or “Finding Nemo” did for sea life.

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2009-08-29 Digital Breadcrumbs

digital breadcrumb 12:21 29/08/09
  • @georgelondon It… doesn't. Was just preoccupied with the internet. We had pizza in the end, with Oke & Matt. in reply to georgelondon #
  • Girl One is finishing off a game of Mario Kart with Matt, & then it's Royal Tannenbaums. G1 just thrashed us at Settlers Of Catan. #
  • @Wossy BIG fan of the franchise, so anticipating a lot of fun. The opening disasters are always awesome in them. (My favourite is in FD2) in reply to Wossy #
  • Just spent half an hour looking for my fucking birth certificate. I can picture it right now, but we didn't find the damn thing! #
  • I wouldn't have any real problems with idea of ID cards if I wasn't certain the gov would find a way to make them functionally useless. #
  • @nicktheowl Oh, it's utterly a stupid idea – & I'm coming from a fairly conservative viewpoint on this subject, too. in reply to nicktheowl #
  • @georgelondon @purseonality Neither of you has the slightest clue where my Birth Certificate is, do you? #
  • G1 & I just did the notice of marriage thing! They let us do it even though I didn't have my birth certificate, which was swell! Now, hm… #
  • …New Forest with the dog? We are thinking park up in Ashurst, wander around. If you have any better ideas, tell me RIGHT NOW. #
  • @acheverton in reply to acheverton #
  • @acheverton Perfect response! in reply to acheverton #
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2009-08-28 Digital Breadcrumbs

digital breadcrumb 12:21 28/08/09
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2009-08-27 Digital Breadcrumbs

digital breadcrumb 12:21 27/08/09
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Books – The Road by Cormac McCarthy

SD/RM 22:36 26/08/09

The Road coverI’m a little behind the herd when it comes to Cormac McCarthy‘s work. Despite watching and loving “No Country For Old Men“, I was totally oblivious to the fact that it wasn’t a Coen Brothers original until a few days later. Though I’ve heard stories about his mythical, apparently perfect novel “The Road“, I have to admit that the main reason I picked it up is because I heard about the imminent film of the book.

I’ve a standing rule that where possible, I’ll watch the film version of a story before I’ll read the book that it’s based on. Most of the time the, book is the original – and as such the intended, definitive – version, and generally this makes the book the purer, smarter version of the story. Or at least it’s difficult not to see it that way, if you encounter them in chronological order.

However, I think that a film can be a good example of its medium and still be a disappointing adaptation of a book. Knowing this isn’t enough, though – it’s really difficult to seperate the two in your head as you go. Even if you know that intellectually you should enjoy each on its merits, reading is a much more active mental and emotional process than watching a film, and after living a novel for the amount of time it takes to read it, it’s impossible not to have expectations when taking that experience into a cinema.

My feeling is that the effort to process all this while watching a movie is more hassle than it’s worth, so I reason that if I watch the film first, I’ll get to enjoy both. You have to be a certain sort of lunatic to retroactively dis-enjoy a film if when you eventually read the book you find it’s different – why would you do that to yourself? – and as I’m almost immune to plot-twists, it isn’t as if having a plot laid out for me in film is going to ruin my enjoyment of it in text.

The Road - Movie image(To clarify, I don’t mean that I’m immune to plot-twists because I work them out – I have never understood the desire to outsmart a story that so many people seem to have – it’s a story, people – it’s not a destination, it’s a ride. The way my mind works, it’s constantly ticking over possible places the story can go as I enjoy it, so a film falling in line with one of the vague thoughts I had about it is a pleasant buzz, not a groundbreaker.)

It’s one of hundreds of little tricks I use to make living among your species bearable – this way round, trying to work out why they made certain changes during the adaptation process can be an enjoyable exercise, rather than the disappointment spiral it can become if I’ve already got an emotional relationship with the original when I get to the copy.

So, anyway, that’s why I wasn’t going to read “The Road” before the film came out, but I’d heard so much about it that I put it on my birthday wish-list anyway, because I half expected not to get it till much later anyway.

When it turned up unexpectedly, my resolve held – it sat on the side with “No Country For Old Men” and “Let The Right One In”, waiting till some time in the distant future.

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[4] Comments

Films – The Hurt Locker

SD/NP 22:31 26/08/09

The Hurt Locker movie posterDespite appearances, “The Hurt Locker” is Kathryn Bigelow‘s return to familiar ground – the subject of addiction to adrenaline.

What differentiates this film from “Point Break“, however, is that where that film is a big, daft action movie, made for ease of use rather than use of brain, this one is a much more solemn and intense affair. Set in Iraq, the film follows a squad of bomb disposal experts, as they do their best to keep the streets, if not exactly danger free, at least free of planted explosives.

The film opens as tragedy hits the team, and are joined by a new team leader – Sergeant First Class William James, played by Jeremy Renner, who brings a sardonic edge to the over-confident and super-competent bomb disposal expert.

We’re trained by movies to expect certain things at this point – conflict between him and his new team as his maverick attitude puts them in danger, high-octane action set-pieces, bonding moments, and ultimately resolution as he proves himself to team-mates and audience alike.

Bigelow’s movie totally subverts everything we expect from it, almost wilfully daring the viewer to bitch about their thwarted expectations. Which is kind of mean when you consider how much her earlier work has done to create the expected modes in the first place!

What we get instead is a naturalistic, political or social agenda-free movie that follows its characters around as they do their jobs, in admittedly emotionally heightened conditions, rather than have them explain their actions.

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2009-08-21 Digital Breadcrumbs

digital breadcrumb 13:21 21/08/09
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The Conversation

opinio nation 16:21 20/08/09

One of the recurring problems when it comes to promoting or even supporting any new technology or idea is the fact that people tend to polarise on the subject of anything outside of their sphere of experience. Pundits will make broad and binary statements about a system, or will publish research that uses a truncated metric on systems that have multiple uses and user bases.

Or to put it more bluntly, in an effort to quantify or place a currency on new concepts or ideas, otherwise intelligent people will sometimes feel compelled to talk with authority on subjects on which they have little or no experience or working knowledge.

We all do this – it’s an ingrained part of the human condition to trust what you know, and mistrust what you don’t – so there’s no sense getting too smug about it, but it’s something that working in any tech area, where things are changing and moving forward all the time, you see constantly. It’s something of an occupational hazard.

In the case of Twitter, this has been exacerbated by the intense media hype and attention it has been under.

Graham Linehan has written a post discussing the downside of forming an opinion so publicly under these circumstances.

“Like a lot of Web 2.0, Twitter is as good as the people on it, and uninformed pieces like Jackie’s continue to fool otherwise bright people into thinking that it’s some sort of “I’m having a sandwich” announcement service. Certainly, there are people on Twitter who might use it this way…and more power to them if it makes them happy… but there are also journalists, scientists, humorists, magazines, newspapers, authors, and Samuel Johnson. There are Mums, Dads, soldiers, doctors, nurses, firemen, base jumpers, astronauts, old people, young people, builders, boxers, cops and at least one tank (don’t ask)…
…We are sharing links to thought-provoking articles, we are making each other laugh, we are keeping each other up to speed on current events…we are communicating with each other on a platform that encourages good manners, that rewards us when we’re interesting and lightly smacks our hand when we’re not.”

Ironically, Linehan and many other Twitter users are not beyond forming such rash and polarised opinions on subjects and issues, but then, that’s kind of the point. Twitter doesn’t form or deform personalities – it’s far too simple a system to do anything of the sort – all Twitter does is provide a venue for communication, and allow them to create micro, macro or meta communities for them to socialise in.

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