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Finally got to see Wanted the other day. I had high hopes for it. Nightwatch and Daywatch were two of the best movies in a long time. Unfortunately the same can’t be said of Wanted which suffered from Hollywood-itis big time.

My overall impression: take 1 part Night Watch, 1 part Fight Club, then remove all semblance of a plot, add a few unsurprising twists and then remove a bunch of character development. What you will end up with is a beautiful, gritty 2 hour fight scene with a few moments of brilliant dark humor and a whole bunch of, well, over-the-top violence.

Oddly enough, the movie had a decent, albeit odd premise that might have been a good basis for a movie if the only mention of it hadn’t been a short exposition in the middle in between the relentless action.

Don’t get me wrong, Timur Bekmambetov is definitely a directorial genius. This movie was really a visual masterpiece with some of the best action to grace any movie in a long time, perhaps since the Matrix revolutionized the medium (well maybe not, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger take that honor). But it was wonderful to see what Bekmambetov could do with a decent Hollywood budget. Yet, after Night Watch, I expected a good dark gritty plot to go with it.

The cast did a good job considering and the lead did really well evoking Norton’s performance from Fight Club. It was also fun to see the cameo by the lead of Night Watch. I was even impressed with Jolie’s performance, which is surprising these days.

But good acting, eye candy and action can’t save a lack of plot.
So overall I’d give the movie a

for artistry
and a

for content
rounding out at a

So, I’ll preface this by saying, “no, I have not read the book, nor have I seen the movie.”

But either way, in my infinite geekiness I find this whole thing hilarious. Apparently in the book/movie Angels & Demons, someone tries to blow up the Vatican with some antimatter. What ever happened to good old nuclear bombs? I mean really, there are so many explosive things in this world that are real and obtainable, why resort to absurdly hoaky science fiction in the sequel to what is supposed to be one of those “realistic” consipracy theory books.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090519/sc_nm/us_physics_movie_2

So aside from the fact that it would take billions of years to produce the amount of antimatter noted in the book, here are a few other tidbits worth pondering…

From Wikipedia:

Antimatter cannot be stored in a container made of ordinary matter because antimatter reacts with any matter it touches, annihilating itself and the container.

So how exactly does one transport antimatter to the Vatican? It’s not like you can put it in a jar, because it would just cancel out the jar and blow you up. But supposing you made a special powered device that contains a “Penning Trap” or some such electrical field…

From Wikipedia:

Antimatter is said to be the most costly substance in existence, with an estimated cost of $62.5 trillion per gram.

So… a quarter-gram of antimatter is… about 1.6 trillion dollars. Now there’s an affordable solution to blow up the Vatican! Once again, it begs the question, what ever happened to a nuclear bomb? You could probably buy a whole bunch of them for 1.6 trillion dollars. Heck, you could probably buy the Vatican for that much. Well, maybe not, but still… You could pay off a nice chunk of the national debt anyway…

But it is “fiction” after all. I mean if Star Trek can use “dilitium crystals” and Stargate has “weapons-grade naquida” then I suppose Angels and Devils can use antimatter. Of course it might have been easier just to use parsecs to tesser the Vatican into a black hole.

Lingering sadness from this weekend. Beautiful funeral for a great man. You will be missed Gramp.

fractured rhythm like a broken heartbeat
throbs
      out of time

diversions corrupt, capture, empty
            leave sorrow and
throb
      held back
            by waiting
                  the tears are hollow and lonely

throb
it’s broken
      trying to
            stay

throb
on
throb
track
_______________

©2009 jeremiah savage

How come we don’t have a pirate party in the U.S.? The other countries get to have all the fun while we’re stuck with the crusty old Republicrats.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8012549.stm

Bleah. Too much going on… Comic updates have been late and readership waning. Writing at a standstill after a short burst. Been playing too many Facebook games… Working many hours and such…

Watched Zack & Miri Make a Porno last night. Twas a fun movie. Not quite as good as Chasing Amy which is its spritiual predecessor, but much more funny. Kevin Smith still has it, right down to the yuck moments and potty humor. Besides who could get away with calling a movie that besides him? And holy crap there were a lot of deleted scenes. Some gems others not so much… Didn’t even get through them all…

Now this is a great headline. It’s got red meat, death and wishy-washy language: and a colon too!

Red meat raises risk of all kinds of death: study

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090324/sc_nm/us_red_death_4

Seriously though, “all kids of death?” Um, so red meat can cause car accidents and plane crashes? Or syphilis and crib death syndrome? I mean I know that red meat can cause people to get angry and go into a rage but can it cause decapitation too? And what is up with putting a colon in a headline? What happened to prepositional phrases: not cool any more?

Eh, well I’m off to get a burger so lightning can strike me.

So just finished up a big stint of advertising for my comic. Hits went up really high for a while. But now that I’ve stopped they’ve gone back down. I think I need to explore different venues for advertising the comic. It’s just frustrating. I still have some more ideas up my sleeve to pimp my comic, but I think in general webcomics are not as popular as they were.

In other stuff, I watched Office Space last night. Cute movie had some great moments and nice irony.

So Amazon released a new Kindle eBook reader yesterday. Being an avid reader and geek myself I really want to like this little device, but no matter which way I try, it just doesn’t cut it.

So why do I not want to buy one of these things:

1. Cost: No matter which way you cut it, $350 is a lot of money for something that can only read books. That’s 14± hardcover books right there or a really nice XBox 360, or an iPod Touch. Add to that the fact that the books still cost hardcover prices, and this becomes an expensive novelty instead of a must-have device.
2. Copy protection: Nowadays, I get pickier and pickier about what I buy digitally. There is no way I am paying $25 for a digital book that I can only read on the Kindle. If I could transfer the file to my iPod and computer, it might be worth it. Get rid of the stupid copy protection which only serves to limit the real consumer not hinder the pirates.
3. Nothing beats a book: Sorry, but reading is a tactile experience as well as a visceral one. Nothing will compare to curling up with a nice hardcover book and just reading. Plus I’m a book collector, so what can I say. With that said, I would not be averse to reading on an eBook reader. There are a number of throwaway books that I would love to read once and not have to buy a paperback of or mess with the library. If it was affordable it might be something I could consider.

Some tips for Amazon:

1. You need an iTunes for Kindle. A simple way to sync up those copy-protection-free eBooks with a PC so they can be put on other devices. Look at the iPhone model if you want examples. You can still buy and view on your iPhone, but you can also buy and view on your computer.
2. Book of the month club or library. Face it, the Kindle will never compete with hardcover book sales, at least not for many years to come. The people that would buy a hardcover want a real book to hold in their hand that they can keep and read again. The people that really could go for a Kindle are the people that are in book of the month clubs or regular library patrons. And guess what they have that Kindle doesn’t, value. Cut the hardcover prices and go to a monthly fee. Like a Netflix for books with tiers based on how many books you can have at a time. Don’t like a book, return it and get another. Then when you’re done, return it again. If you want to read it again, then take it out again. The system has been working for libraries for ages, why can’t it work digitally as well? And if someone really likes a book, let them buy a copy-protection free ebook that they can put on their computer for a reduced rate. Call it Books-on-Demand® (I want a 10% chip of all profits, hear me Amazon).
3. Get rid of all the damn buttons. My iPod touch has two buttons. That is too few, but for an ebook reader people don’t need 50,000 buttons. Take a cue from cell phone makers. You need a pullout keyboard that goes away when you are reading. and a nice big touch button or slide bar that you use to turn pages. That’s it. If I wanted a laptop, I’d buy one. If I want to read a book, I want as few distractions between me and the words as possible.

One last thing to note: eInk rocks. I would never buy an eBook if I could only read it on an LCD. And if I have one more battery hungry device in my house, I swear I will personally go to the Duracell factory and make obscene gestures at them. Seriously. If I want an eBook reader it damn well better get days on a charge, preferably weeks.

Psycho Review (the original, not the remake)

So I finally saw Psycho last night. I liked it far better than Rear Window. I can see why it is considered a classic. Very few modern movie-makers still don’t have the gall to kill off their main character halfway through the movie (except maybe Joss Whedon). That was a very bold move.

Of course like any movie from this period Psycho was definitely a warning for women of “loose morals.” If you have an affair and steal your bosses money then you will be brutally murdered by a transvestite killer while you are in the shower The movie also came with a classic exposition at the end to explain everything for the less informed movie viewers.

As could be expected, I probably would have enjoyed the movie more if I didn’t know what happened. Its next to impossible to live in modern society and not know that Norman Bates was a dress-wearing psycho and that the lead character got stabbed in the shower. But still, there were some twists and turns that I didn’t expect and the movie was very well done, with some incredible acting on the part of everyone, particularly the guy that played Norman Bates.

I think it goes without saying as well that this was a six-bubble film, if just for the fact that every single horror movie since it has ripped off at least one thing from it.