Avatar is primed to leave a huge dent in the notions that motion capture films equate to soulless, dead-eyed characters, that sci-fi films must consist of pop music soundtracks and giant, clashing robots to have broad appeal, and that big screen fantasy lands have to be anchored in familiar, Earth-like places to yield heartfelt audience investment.
Roger Ebert on his Sun-Times blog:
“Avatar” creates a new world from scratch, and, as Lucas did in “Star Wars,” fills it with such countless minute details that it doesn’t seem artificial. Well it does, but it’s as real as a fantasy can seem, if you see what I mean. The creatures of this planetary forest are many-toothed and preposterous, but not the grotesque artifices of so many monster movies. Their battles seem sincere and earnest, and not the banging of pots and pans as in “Transformers 2.”
In preparation for the rollout of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, Blizzard have been revamping their free Battle.net service. As part of this, and no doubt to decrease their overheads from maintaining separate authentication services, they’re also shifting World of Warcraft over to Battle.net as well. Account migrations have been available for some months already, and Blizzard announced at the recent BlizzCon ‘09 that some time in the near future, migration would be mandatory. According to MMO-Champion, an apparently accidental FAQ update to the European site has indicated that the cutoff date may be in mid-November.
Cue the crazy:
they are transferring your account from Blizzard incorporated in California to Blizzard incorporated in Oregon Such a transfer across state lines CANNOT be required and is a federal crime.
No indication whether this is a deliberate troll or not, but it’s hardly more nonsensical than the allegedly ‘legitimate’ complaints about the migration. The good news is that there is a slim chance these chicken littles might actually follow through on their threats for once, and leave the game.
Update: Blizzard has made it official, and provided a focal point for the madness. Thanks Blizzard. Thizzard.
Update 2: It’s an assault on personal liberty.
The BBC have unveiled the new logo for the forthcoming Steven Moffat-led, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan’s legs-starring 2010 series of Doctor Who. Quick opinion: I think the type they’ve used looks nice. I think arranging it so it looks like the TARDIS is tacky, but not nearly as tacky as the lens flares. Nothing says “I just got a copy of Photoshop!” quite like lens flares.
Yes: the Referendum gets unattractively self-righteous and judgmental. Quite a lot of what passes itself off as a dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own choices as the only right or natural ones by denouncing others’ as selfish or pathological or wrong. So it’s easy to overlook that hidden beneath all this smug certainty is a poignant insecurity, and thenaked 3 A.M. terror of regret.
Now I’m not saying that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, but I have not yet been shown any good evidence that he didn’t! There also seems to be a concerted effort to silence those brave enough to speak out!
What is Mr. Beck hiding?
“But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think are lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.”
via @glinner.
Via MetaFilter: Mr Squiggle turns 50 today.
From all the people, of every gender, race, or creed, tired of films transparently developed to address a demographic:
You seem to know what you’re doing. Please keep doing what you’re doing.
Thank you.
Never have I felt more justified in my decision to f* off and be somewhere else when this series - the series I’ve followed since I was two years old - finally dies. This isn’t Doctor Who. It isn’t even sophisticated enough to qualify as fan-fic.
Lawrence Miles weighs in on “Planet of the Dead”. See, this is why I have been and will continue to hold my tongue over the new Star Trek movie. I would sound batshit insane and any rational person would ask the question: Why do you even care anymore? So the series has moved on and rightly or wrongly it no longer represents what it once did to you.
But eh, crazy is still fun to read.
Progress is achieved by taking part, not by switching off.
Just a note to all you lovely Internet folk: The moment you start calling people sheep, whatever argument you were trying to make lost all credibility and interest.
Really. It’s old.
Things are changing
I meant to launch into a redesign of the website back in January, but for some mysterious reason that never happened. In the coming months however I’ll have a few things I want to publish to the site, so I’ll be instituting some gradual changes to the site as that forthcoming stuff goes up. The focus of the site will be shifting away from a forum for my occasional rants and towards a showcase of my work and a discussion upon it. The rants will still be around somewhere and in some form, but probably not plastered on the front page for days on end.
The first of these changes is the rotating slideshow of images on the front page, highlighting my various projects. As I complete more of my project pages, writing at least one interesting thing about each project, I’ll add them into the rotation as well. I deal with pictures, so perhaps I should be showing them off more often.
More coming soon…
The final episode of Battlestar Galactica has gone to air. All involved should be congratulated for creating such a satisfying conclusion to what has been in whole a brilliant series. That is all. Now let the Internet do it’s thing and ruin everyone’s fun.
UPDATE: People can be so boring. A common complaint from fundies with regards to many movies (especially science-fiction) is that they do not portray a world in subservience to a higher power. That is, these people demand that their view of the universe be reflected in all areas of life, fictional creations included. For people to complain simply about the inclusion of supernaturalism in BSG is hypocrisy. Boring “Internet Atheist” hypocrisy.
MORE: A response:
Whilst reflecting this morning upon the absolutely and exhilaratingly satisfying conclusion to one of the greatest television series of all time, I found myself mulling over the very issue you singled out. It’s strange that I, as an atheist, accept BSG’s heavy spiritualist slant with such enthusiasm. I guess it’s all in the way they handle it: their approach is unwaveringly agnostic - they refuse to categorise or define the higher power which guides the characters through their journey, a truly refreshing attitude to behold when contrasted with common real-world views on religion.
What it comes down to is the show’s creators have crafted a universe in which the existence of a higher power is virtually undeniable, but have done so with such guile, intellect and pathos that where you in the shoes of these characters, even the hardiest of non-believers would be forced to see the truth permeating all the events which brought you to where you are.
Reality 1, Deluded Jerktards 0
Anyone want to know where to find some primo kiddie porn? Ask everyone’s favourite uber-pedophile Stephen Conroy and his buddies at ACMA. Their secret stash has been made not-so-secret anymore by the fine freedom-loving folk at WikiLeaks. Says Senator Shitheel:
“No one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of this list.”
I don’t know about that. From earlier in the article:
“The list itself should concern every Australian - although plenty of the material is unsavoury or even illegal, the presence of sites like YouTube, MySpace, gambling or even Christian sites on the list raises a lot of questions,” [Colin Jacobs, EFA] said.
Cue bleating insistence from Conroy that by the time the list affects all of Australia it will be pruned to only the kiddie porn they insist the list is for, and won’t also block sites that are objectionable to the moralist assholes who have sway with the stuffed shirts who run the country.
I suppose I’m not interested in “cyber safety” though. Partly because anyone using the word “cyber” should not be trusted. Mostly however it’s because I don’t think the Internet should be made kid-safe at the sake of adult freedom. If parents don’t want their kids to see “bad” content, parents can supervise their children.
This program is not about “cyber safety” however. It can’t be, because it does not limit access to the objectionable content. It is about the Labor Party buying the votes of lazy, paranoid parents who are convinced that the world is out to corrupt their sweet, innocent little lambs of god. And if the last election went the other way, it would be about the Liberal Party doing the same. They’re all a bunch of morally corrupt whores.
Except for Nick Xenophon. Turns out the only person I voted for at the last election might not actually have shit for brains. For now.
The trailer for Michael Mann’s new movie Public Enemies starring Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, and the batshit-insane Marion Cotillard. It is truly bizarre seeing a period of history that has in the past been so well filmed be given the digital video treatment. IMDB says a Sony CineAlta F23 was used. It’ll be very interesting to see how the film (can we still call them that?) looks on the big screen.
UPDATE: I’m hearing now that while most of the movie was shot on the F23, a small amount was shot on the smaller EX1. Cool.