guttervomit

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The Forgettable

12 Nov 2004

I finally got to see The Forgotten today, after pushing it down the Priority Viewing List two weeks in a row.

Luis’ Quick Capsule Review: Really nice movie poster.

The Forgotten is sorta like what would’ve happened if M. Night Shyamalan had directed Dark City … in film school.

It’s got tons of intimate-personal-drama mixed in with mind-fuck suspense, the sort of balancing act that every Shyamalan movie attempts, and its plot feels like a refurbished version of Alex Proyas’ 1998 classic. The difference, of course, is that it has none of the elegance or command for the medium exhibited in either Proyas’ or Shyamalan’s respective works, not to mention that it’s populated by a bunch of professional over-actors (excluding Julianne Moore, but only by a little).

I suppose what bugs me most about this movie is that it’s perfectly clear to the audience who’s behind these dead kids a good half-hour before the filmmakers decide to actually reveal it. I mean, seriously, if you see a disc-like shape in the clouds, you don’t say, “What the fuck was that? Ohmanohmanohman!” You say: “Hey! Aliens!” which, in fact, it was … and yeah, that was a spoiler.

If perhaps, they had thrown in a second twist towards the end, similar to what Shyamalan pulled in The Village, it may have helped the film regain some lost ground. To be honest though, by the third act I was beyond caring.

Posted in Movies | 1 Comment »
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Next-generation TabletPC Technology

11 Nov 2004

Prototype software called StitchMaster [from Microsoft] lets users select photos on their Tablet PC by tapping or circling groups of them, then wirelessly pass those files to another Tablet user sitting within arm’s reach by making a gesture that spans both screens. Stitching works by measuring the timing, the angle and the exit location of pen gestures that leave the edge of a machine’s screen. Since Tablet PC’s can broadcast their Internet address using the 802.11 wireless networking standard, if a second machine within two and a half feet picks up the continuation of a pen stroke across its edge, the software can tell which machine sent it and infer a handoff.

This sounds almost like magic. Read about the next wave in Tablet-based computing here.

Posted in Hardware | No Comments »
54

The Incredibles

10 Nov 2004

I think I may have just seen my personal favorite movie of the year. It’s as if the universe had conspired to throw countless lame-ass, cliche-ridden, insipid and ridiculous movies at me all year round, to make this superhero-movie-to-end-all-superhero-movies all the sweeter.

Brad Bird has gotta be one of the greatest animated film directors of our time (perhaps second only to Pixar founder John Lasseter himself). His previous film, The Iron Giant, was my favorite animated feature ever, and not just because it featured a boy and his big-ass robot friend either. It was supremely well-written and was the most tightly-plotted cartoon I’d ever seen. It proved that it was possible to tell an imaginative, unique and charming story while staying safely within the bounds of “wholesome family entertainment,” a genre that studios like Dreamworks have been scraping at the edges of with their kid-films-with-adult-jokes fare (like Shrek and Antz). I think this is where Pixar genius really lies: Dreamworks characters are Saturday-morning-cartoon cutouts remixed with mature dialogue, while Pixar’s characters are dazzingly real. (The unbelievably inventive Monsters Inc is proof of this.)

In this day and age where the only way to make people laugh is to pull rougher pranks and spout ever more cruel one-liners, it’s great to see a movie that pulls on your proverbial heart-strings by sheer awesomeness of vision and some of the meanest story-telling mojo ever.

Thanks, Pixar. Your movies justify the medium.

Posted in Movies | 54 Comments »
1

Tara Reid’s Mammary Mishap

7 Nov 2004

Read the New York Post feature here, and check out the original, hi-res photos here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
0

OMG Wookies!

5 Nov 2004

The Episode 3 trailer was just released very recently, and boy if it isn’t going to be another round of extremely-cool-trailer-followed-by-extremely-awful-movie.

Play it again, George. We love ya.

Posted in Movies | No Comments »
0

The Manchurian Candidate

4 Nov 2004

Now here’s a remake that has a lot going for it: A-list director and cast, good genes and a lot of relevance in the current political climate. It makes me wonder why I was fighting sleep throughout most of its 2+ hours, or why every “plot twist” seemed so obvious.

I haven’t seen the original Candidate and most the reviews I’ve read about Jonathan Demme’s version dwell on the fact that it’s a very decent, respectable remake of the Frankenheimer classic. Since I have nothing to directly compare it to (i.e., other than 2 decades worth of socially-relevant political thrillers), I’ll just get out and say what everyone else is probably thinking:

This movie’s story was original back in the 60’s. Nowadays, it’s just repetitive.

I imagine that the original Candidate’s major draw back then was that it was presenting a frighteningly surreal perspective on the dark side of politics. But now that that “dark side” is what we see every day, it’s a lot less frightening and lot more real.

So ultimately, what really dragged this movie down was the fact that it shouldn’t've been made (or remade, as the case may be). We’re long past the point where brainwashing and political subterfuge are still unique concepts, and if you want to thrill your audiences, you have to make the movie with that in mind. Unfortunately, nothing in this movie feels modern; it creaks with age and plods along for hours.

As it is, Jonathan Demme is like a very talented singer covering a golden oldie. I’ve heard this one a million times, man.

Sing me something new.

Posted in Movies | No Comments »
0

Rodeohead

4 Nov 2004
Have you ever wanted to know what a whole bunch of Radiohead songs would sound like if strung together in one long bluegrass medley? I know I have, and the reason why I have is because I’d love to waste half an hour of my time trying to figure out what the different songs were. You can check out the free MP3 (sung by bluegrass duo Hard n’ Phirm) here; there are 14 excerpts in all, some of them sung with lyrics and some with just very short riffs (these were the tricky ones).

My answers after the jump:

@##@
1. everything in its right place
2. planet telex
3. 2+2=5
4. no surprises
5. optimistic
6. karma police
7. knives out
8. creep
9. morning bell
10. how to disappear completely
11. just
12. fake plastic trees
13. nice dream
14. paranoid android
Posted in Music | No Comments »
0

Ooo, vengeance

3 Nov 2004

I just did something this morning that filled me with great, great pleasure. The company I’ve been working for (contractually) over the past two months has been keeping me on a really tight leash since early September, and my contract ran out yesterday (Nov 3) officially. I had been laying low during the days prior to Nov 3 because I had a feeling nobody remembered my contract was about to end. And true enough, when I woke up this morning, there was an email waiting for me with a whole bunch of instructions for the project we were currently working on.

I took my time pecking out a brief reply, to the effect of: “Just thought i’d let you know, my contract with [ your company ] ended yesterday. Sorry.”

Predictably, it sent the project manager into conniptions, because I was the only person who could continue the project. A few minutes later, the general manager himself called me, asking what was up. I calmly explained that according to my contract, I had to fulfill 44 working days from Sept 3, and that that was over and done with as of yesterday. There was a long silence on the other end. Finally, he said, “I’ll get back to you” and hung up.

After about an hour, the only girl in their team of creatives called me apologizing for the confusion. She asked very nicely if I could just work on the last batch of instructions (read: for free), and then they’d take over from there. I didn’t really mind, because I knew I had already made my point.

See, the person I was really trying to frazzle here was the general manager, who had refused to hire me on a project-basis back in September. Instead he had funneled me into a contractual position in an effort to save money. (Hiring me contractually means they can throw random little tasks at me whenever they feel like it, which I absolutely hated. It was a reminder of why I don’t work in an office.)

So now they were stuck with a project that was 90% complete and no one to finish it. If they had just gotten me on a project-basis, I would’ve been happy to work on this gig until the end of time (or at the very least, until the end of this week).

He had painted himself into a corner with the whole contract thing — if he paid me overtime for the next couple of days, he’d end up spending more than (or close to) what he would’ve paid had he just hired me on project-basis in the first place, and renewing my contract further would just compound the error. The fact that he had the girl call me up told me that he was aware that they still needed me, but that he knew I didn’t have any other obligations to their company. He had drawn my contract up himself after all.

I was discussing the situation with my girlfriend afterwards and she observed that maybe (in this country, anyway) employees had to remind their bosses about their contracts running out. She had just ended a 3-month contract with a major daily that had seen her supervisor begging her to stay for a few more days until they found a replacement. I found her situation really peculiar because the company had given her a temporary position that apparently needed a permanent occupant, and yet they had not noticed that her contract hadn’t given her any permanence.

It’s almost sad. Filipinos have this really informal, casual way of looking at contracts that bug the hell out of me sometimes.

Hey, geniuses. Really simple: If you’re going to go to the trouble of formalizing an agreement, then remember it, ffs.

Posted in Randomness | No Comments »
0

Shopping for a Camera-phone

3 Nov 2004
Window-shopping in the Philippines can be a pretty frustrating experience. Salespeople here always get the impression that you’re ready to buy when you ask more than one or two questions about a particular device, and they get all pissed if you walk off. Over the years I’ve learned to maintain this casual, uninterested attitude whenever I talk to them, or I do my window-shopping online instead. It’s not quite as fun as pointing at something through a glass countertop and then holding it in your hand, but it beats being hassled by those fuckwits.

So anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing over the past couple of hours, as I look (casually) for a phone to replace my moto next year. My checklist of features is pretty simple:
- large, hi-res screen
- bluetooth
- USB connectivity
- vga (or better) camera
- built-in radio
- at least 8mb built-in memory
I came up with the three phones pictured above — a Nokia 3230, 6260, and a Sony-Ericsson S700i (picture is, obviously, not to scale).

I’m actually a bit partial to the S700i because I’ve never had a Sony-Ericsson phone before, and a 1.3 megapixel CDD sensor with spot-metering sounds mighty fine. It uses Memory Stick Duo though, which kinda sucks, and it costs a bundle: about US$600 without a contract.

I thought the 6260 was cute too, but in a pretty gay/geeky way: if I got it, I’d have a second twisty gadget to add to my collection. Its built-in camera isn’t so hot though (it’s still a VGA). Also, since it’s a traditional clamshell, not having an external display seems like a major oversight imo. At US$400, it’s a lot more affordable than the S700i though.

Lastly, the 3230 is ugly as hell, but it seems to get the job done, and it’s by far the lightest of three (it only weighs 110g). Having a keypad area about as short as my thumb isn’t exactly helping its stature on this list. And what’s with that chest-waist ratio between the screen and keypad anyway? I guess the only thing really good about it is that all this ugliness means they’ll be selling it for cheap, kinda like a whore with bad breath (at least, I hope so).
Posted in Hardware | No Comments »
0

Crap.

1 Nov 2004

I broke the Sennheiser earbuds that came with my iRiver yesterday. Well, I didn’t exactly break them … at least, not in the “smashed to bits” sense of the word. It was more in the “dropped them in a plate of meat sauce” sense I guess.

When I pulled them out I tried wiping them down and drying them out, but the right bud was permanently fux0red. It’s still pushing out sound, but it’s really fuzzy and very weak, so that when you have both buds on, it feels like you’re going deaf in one ear.

Anyway, so I’ve been looking around for a good pair of replacements, maybe another pair of higher-end Sennheisers or one of those fancy in-ear Sony Nudes (yeah, the ones that you stick directly into your ear canal to create a seal). Not even sure if any of those are available here, but I guess it’s worth looking around for.

[ UPDATE : Well, I found a pair of Sennheiser MX 500s at a local appliance store for about US$18 (converted of course), which is pretty much the same price they go for anywhere else. Overall I'm pretty happy with them.

They sound significantly more controlled than my old Sonys; heavy bass doesn't fuzz and cymbals don't shatter. I listen to a lot of garage and punk so I used to hear a lot of distortion with my old headphones.

Note that at its < US$20 price point, the MX 500 is still considered low-end, so it's not "pro" in any sense of the word. Still, if you're not a sound engineer or musician, I think it's a very decent investment. ]

Posted in Software | No Comments »