Sunday, April 29, 2007
Quote of the Week
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." (Pablo Picasso)
Labels:
quotes,
technology
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Built to Last

Completed in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge took just four years to build. But the design and construction teams did a thorough job. When it opened, the Golden Gate was the largest suspension bridge in the world. Seventy years and several earthquakes later, it is still standing -- a monument to good old-fashioned slide rule engineering.
Labels:
snapshots
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Bring Back the "Elite"
As the Bush years draw to a close, is the era of anti-intellectualism coming to an end? Bill Maher has this to say:
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Grindhouse
Now this is one seriously guilty pleasure. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have teamed up for a double-feature tribute to the low-budget horror and action movies that screened at seedy theaters in the 70s. Check out the trailer:
The result is a 3-hour-long exploitation genre extravaganza, interspersed with hilarious and absolutely outrageous fake trailers for nonexistent movies. Fans of Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Tarantino's Pulp Fiction will love the experience; others should stay home and lock their doors.

The dirty fun kicks off with Planet Terror, Rodriguez's hyperkinetic, maximum-volume spoof of the zombie horror movie genre. Fully realized and faithful to genre conventions, the film goes beyond a mere parody by amping up the action, gore, and sexuality to ridiculous new levels. Shot with a grainy, distressed film stock, it's also a jaw-dropping expression of visual style. The tight script keeps the action moving along at a maximum clip, while Rose McGowan brings just the right kind of smoldering, campy performance to the screen. This brand of hip, visceral filmmaking packs a wallop and has long been missing from contemporary movies.

Tarantino's contribution, Death Proof, fills out the second half of the double feature and shows that Rodriguez can be a tough act to follow. Starting out at a slower pace and with a lot more expository dialogue, Death Proof suffers initially by comparison to the amped-up zombiefest that preceded it. Ostensibly an homage to slasher flicks, revenge movies, and car chase films a la The Vanishing Point, Tarantino's film doesn't pay as much attention to genre conventions and style; it feels more like the director is doing a Tarantino flick than anything else. Self-referential bits such as a mention of the fictitious Big Kahuna Burger chain from Pulp Fiction also expose Tarantino's penchant for navel-gazing. Those quibbles aside, the movie is good fun and picks up the pace in the second half, finally speeding toward one of the best non-CGI car chase sequences ever filmed. The ending, abrupt and unsentimental, is an appropriate bookend for this tribute to a genre that might best be described as "dirty deeds done dirt cheap."
More info:
Alternate trailer:
The result is a 3-hour-long exploitation genre extravaganza, interspersed with hilarious and absolutely outrageous fake trailers for nonexistent movies. Fans of Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Tarantino's Pulp Fiction will love the experience; others should stay home and lock their doors.

The dirty fun kicks off with Planet Terror, Rodriguez's hyperkinetic, maximum-volume spoof of the zombie horror movie genre. Fully realized and faithful to genre conventions, the film goes beyond a mere parody by amping up the action, gore, and sexuality to ridiculous new levels. Shot with a grainy, distressed film stock, it's also a jaw-dropping expression of visual style. The tight script keeps the action moving along at a maximum clip, while Rose McGowan brings just the right kind of smoldering, campy performance to the screen. This brand of hip, visceral filmmaking packs a wallop and has long been missing from contemporary movies.

Tarantino's contribution, Death Proof, fills out the second half of the double feature and shows that Rodriguez can be a tough act to follow. Starting out at a slower pace and with a lot more expository dialogue, Death Proof suffers initially by comparison to the amped-up zombiefest that preceded it. Ostensibly an homage to slasher flicks, revenge movies, and car chase films a la The Vanishing Point, Tarantino's film doesn't pay as much attention to genre conventions and style; it feels more like the director is doing a Tarantino flick than anything else. Self-referential bits such as a mention of the fictitious Big Kahuna Burger chain from Pulp Fiction also expose Tarantino's penchant for navel-gazing. Those quibbles aside, the movie is good fun and picks up the pace in the second half, finally speeding toward one of the best non-CGI car chase sequences ever filmed. The ending, abrupt and unsentimental, is an appropriate bookend for this tribute to a genre that might best be described as "dirty deeds done dirt cheap."
More info:
Alternate trailer:
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Quote of the Week
"I try to work on things that won't happen unless I do them." (Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and inventor of Java.)
Labels:
quotes,
technology
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