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After seeing this movie, anyone who thinks it's a turkey is either a moron or saw a different movie than I did

I guess lots of people saw a different movie than you.

This movie deserves the videogame it got.

I know that Cheetah Girls is not in the typical Slashdot demographic, but the article recounts just how legally corrupt corporate interests can become. They don't give a damn about artists, employees, stockholders or consumers. All they want is to line the pockets of the rich greedy insiders, the top .01% of the heap. They've bought the government, including the courts, and they are looting everything. It's not capitalism, it thievery.

...no need for the dried-and-fried crap.

For those who want to experiment with "real" ramen, look for "Yakisoba Noodles" in the deli case if you can't find the fresh ramen kits that some Japanese companies make. As far as broth goes, if you want it easy, get a can of Swanson's Chicken Broth and use that. If you want to get a more authentic effect, make some bone-in pork roast or roast a chicken, then make broth with the bones. You cook the noodles at the last minute, in plain boiling water for about 30 seconds before draining and adding to the bowl. Pour the broth over that. Add cooked veggies and your choice of meat. Oishii oishii.

If you are lucky enough to live in LA, here's a few good places to get a prepared bowl of Ramen:
Koraku, Little Tokyo and Sherman Oaks;
Ramen Nippon, Reseda;
Kyushu Ramen, Van Nuys;
Tampopo at Mitsuwa Market, Mar Vista

Koraku in Sherman Oaks just opened up. The Little Tokyo branch is an institution that's been up and running since the '50s. The new place looks like a little out-of-the-way Showa-era restaurant in Japan, complete with replicas of Occupation-era advertising signs. Koraku in Little Tokyo is open until 3am, and was a place to go to after seeing bands at Al's Bar back in the day or The Smell or The Cocaine Club now.

Ramen Nippon in Reseda is a favorite of Japanese students at Cal State Northridge. Good healthy Japanese food.

Kyushu Ramen is open late and not only has good noodles but good Japanese "Family Restaurant" kind of food. They also have a separate menu in Japanese which has some good authentic stuff you don't find at most LA Japanese restaurants. They're happy to explain if you don't read Japanese.

Tampopo is a branch of a South Bay restaurant. The movie "Tampopo" is about the quest for the perfect bowl of Ramen, and similarly Tampopo the restaurant is about serious Ramen. The little satellite stand in the West LA Mitsuwa is almost as good as the South Bay version.

One important note about the Ramen you get at these restaurants: they are served in HUGE bowls. Most Gaijin can share a bowl happily. However, somehow or another Japanese folks manage to polish off the entire thing by themselves. Including petite little female Japanese college students from CSUN.

Make the fresh kind for yourself and you will never go back to Cup Noodles.

Me, I never forgave Turan for his review of Titanic, but he was really ahead of the curve. He dissed Titanic before it became fashionable, so points for insight.

He is definitely one of the more skilled reviewers out there. He knows how a movie works. I'm just bummed. I liked Titanic, dammit.

I've become increasingly fond of Kenneth Turan's reviews for both the L.A. Times and NPR. He's very similar to Ebert in that he looks at every aspect of the movie, from story arc to character development, to shooting style and overall "playability". He's always fair, and he displays a genuine love for film that's getting harder to find in the snarky world of in-your-face journalism.

He's also written a nice little book called, Never Coming to a Theatre Near You about movies that he particularly enjoyed, that barely got any screen time. It gives a great insight into the mind of a critic.

For the curious, here's his review of Episode III.

Well the LA Times charges today for their calandar section. Rollcall charges. So the article isn't listing everything.

OK you were talking about their "briefing books". You can get the same information all over the place like finance.yahoo.com and quicken's finance center. So no I don't consider that valuable content.

And finally I don't agree that writing mainstream articles about issues which are non controversial is saying anything important. Pulitzer or not. Mainstream good movies win the oscars not the most important moviews that are remembered decades later.

Flat rate for a lot of stuff would appeal to a lot of people a whole lot more.

Flat rate sucks for online content. It's a subscription, and subscriptions aren't worth the money unless you read a lot of the material your subscribing to. When you subscribe to a dead-tree newspaper, you tend to read a lot of articles in a lot of issues. If you're not doing that, then the subscription becomes wasteful, and it makes more sense to buy a single copy when you feel like reading that particular paper. Which is almost like a micropayment.

Online content supports a sort of grazing model, and I think that's what most online readers do. I know I do: I sort through the headlines and news summaries. I tend to follow specific writers rather than specific news sites. If I had to pay subscriptions for every site I visit, the cost would be extreme.

I used to like to read Kenneth Turan's movie reviews -- one of the few film critics I don't consider a dweeb. Can't any more, because the LA Times Calendar web site now charges $5 a month for access. A reasonable subscription fee if you read most of the site on a regular basis, but not to read just one columnist.

LA Times covers this well at http://www.calendarlive.com/cl-et-hoax5feb05,0,305 1919.story with the nice info that ; "To further test PublishAmerica's standards, Macdonald, who compiled the book, left Chapter 21 blank because one writer missed deadline. He included another chapter twice. And he took portions of two other chapters, ran them through a software program that randomly reordered the words, then accepted all the spell check and grammar fixes his software recommended. The result is Chapter 34, nine pages of disconnected gibberish that begins: "Bruce walked around any more. Some people might ought to her practiced eye, at her. I am so silky and braid shoulders. At sixty-six, men with a few feet away from their languid gazes." You too can be an author!

Yes, I am one of the thirty-odd writers who collectively make up "Travis Tea," a pseudonym (and a pun -- say it outloud). :-)

Here is some background on this wacky collaborative sting project that we cobbled together.

Several months ago, in response to a claim by a certain publisher that writers working in the SF/F genre believe it "does not require believable storylines" or "does not need believable every-day characters," genre writer James D. Macdonald got approximately 40 mostly science fiction and fantasy writers to cobble together an intentionally horrendous monstrosity of a novel (read it here as an FTP download in RTF and PDF format) and then submit it, in order to display the less than discriminating tastes of that same certain publisher in regard to the kind of work they accept for publication.

Earlier last week, the sting has been revealed, the publisher fell for it (retracting the acceptance as soon as news spread, of course), and I proudly own up to having authored Chapter 13 of ATLANTA NIGHTS by Travis Tea .

Here's a bit of an excerpt from my chapter:

"Actually, I think I am ready to order now," said Isadore, firmly ignoring it all, flipping back his red forelocks out of his face and beyond the back to where the bulk of the abundant and suggestive ponytail rested against his wide strongly utterly virile back -- a back that could do the beast with two backs so well, when one of the two backs came into question and under scrutiny (but the other back of course depended on the woman writhing with him, under him and on top of him ah, the beasts they would make!).

Yes, you can even buy your own copy at Lulu.com to read for gut-wrenching hilarity and educational purposes (lessons on how not to write can be derived from the perusal of this book). Here is the stellar lineup of blurbs from the back cover. And that's just the ones that fit the back cover. There are twice as many additional blurbs inside the front matter of the book. Some of them are truly classic....

I predict this will replace THE EYE OF ARGON as midnight panel reading material at science fiction conventions. This book, is purely and genuinely bad. So bad that it's great. In all seriousness, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest should give it a special achievement prize. :-)

For more detailed coverage, including a list of contributors, of the ATLANTA NIGHTS atrocity -- or should we say, travesty -- see the Cold Ground blog , and Tor Books editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Light . ..

Also, looks like the LA Times has picked up the story .

:-)

Vera Nazarian

Washingtonpost.com and Media Guardian UK both announced recently they will require registration. This may be just the beginning of a mad rush to drop a registration gate on the major news sites.

Some newsppaper sites have indeed started charging for some of their content. But I don't think that this means a shift back to the subscription model, which never did generate enough revenue to matter. More likely, they want to raise the apparent value of content they syndicate to other newspapers.

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I'll say it again: online content won't succeed until you can pay for it as you consume it. Yes, I mean Micropayments. Lots of pundits have fancy reasons why micropayment can't work, but nobody really knows, because nobody's really tried it.

it would be more like me sitting outside your house with a truck-mounted M60 trained on your lounge room window. try telling me that wouldn't make you uncomfortable if not downright belligerent.

it is unlikely that the US would attempt to territorially conquer any major country in the foreseeable future because of the MAD principle -- mutually-assured destruction.

you also neglect to note that the modus operandi of the US is to "conquer" countries by installing puppet governements or overthrowing democratically-elected leaders and the like.

a very relevant example: overthrowing the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh and installing the shah in iran, giving saddam his first chemical and biological weapons to fight the shah when he got a bit too feisty, only to then invade saddam for supposdly having the very same weapons the US taught him to make 2 decades previously.

the US have been, and continue to be arseholes when it comes to interfering in world politics, always to its advantage. the people of the US are too easily subverted by government propaganda to be held to be truly accountable.

All LA Times entertainment stories are available without registration at http://www.calendarlive.com.

All LA Times entertainment stories are available without registration at http://www.calendarlive.com.

I imagine most people are asking, "Who's Steve Ditko?" I hadn't heard the name until I read this article in the LA Times a few weeks ago. To quote the article, "Reclusive artist Steve Ditko, who created the superhero with Stan Lee then abruptly walked away, is listed in new film's credits."

There is some controversy over exactly how much credit Ditko deserves, but according to the article, he is not only being credited in the film, but also is given credit in recent issues of "The Amazing Spider-Man".

One of those meteors will crash to earth and some invisible phantoms are going to emerge from it. They will ravage the earth for 35 years, people will seek refuge in "barrier cities" until a nicely animated, girl with hair from a shampoo ad saves us all. I read about it here

So it looks like this was just a standard form letter that was sent out because Batt jokingly credited cage as a composer.

The station is probably broadcasting from Mexico. You didn't say how far north of the border you are. If the station's located outside the US, then the FCC is
not really going to be able to do much .


I wish I was in Tiajuana

Eating barbequed iguana

I'd take requests on the telephone

I'm on a wavelength far from home

I feel a hot wind on my shoulder

I dial it in from south of the border

I hear the talking of the dj

Can't understand just what does he say?

I'm on a mexican radio

I'm on a mexican radio

Oh come on. Don't you watch TV? The "winners" have been published on TV, newspapers, whereever you want to look all week! It's not a live show! Here's an LA Times article that says better than I can. Suspense isn't the point of these awards. It's entertainment...

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution - (grade: C+) "Maybe Darwin was wrong: this remake shows no sign of evolution."

• Chicago Tribune - "...a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house."

• CNN.com - "...this is one really bad script."

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - (3 stars) "...when it's good, it comes close to being great."

• E! Online - (grade: C+) "...offers an eye-appealing world but a truly disappointing story."

• Entertainment Weekly - (grade: C+) "...[features] everything...but imagination."

• L.A. Weekly - "...underwritten..."

• Los Angeles Times - "...over-plotted and under-dramatized..."

• Mr. Showbiz - (rating: 2/5) "...despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation."

• New York Times - "...both a gas and distant, a toy sealed in its unbreakable box."

• People - "The fault lies not in the stars here but in the script."

• Roger Ebert - (2.5 stars) "I expected more."

• Salon - "...stops far too short of being completely seductive."

• San Francisco Chronicle - "...an amazing display of imagination."

• TV Guide - (2.5 out of 5 stars) "...sorely deficient on the story front."

• USA Today - (3 out of 4 stars) "...[the costumes] allow the power of the performer inside the ape gear to break on through."

• Search the Movie Review Query Engine

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" wants to be all things to all men, and all apes. It's an action picture and a satire of an action picture. It's a comedy and then it gets serious. It's a social satire and then backs away from pushing that angle too far. It even has a weird intra-species romantic triangle in it. And it has a surprise ending that I loved, even though Matt Drudge spoiled it last weekend with a breathless "scoop."

The movie could have been more. It could have been a parable of men and animals, as daring as "Animal Farm." It could have dealt in social commentary with a sting, and satire that hurt. It could have supported, or attacked, the animal rights movement. It could have dealt with the intriguing question of whether a man and a gorilla having sex is open-mindedness, or bestiality (and, if bestiality, in both directions?).

It could have, but it doesn't. It's a cautious movie, earning every letter and numeral of its PG-13 rating. Intellectually, it's science fiction for junior high school boys.

I expected more. I thought Burton would swing for the fence. He plays it too safe, defusing his momentum with little nudges to tell you he knows it's only a movie. The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" was made before irony became an insurance policy. It made jokes, but it took itself seriously. Burton's "Planet" has scenes that defy us to believe them (his hero survives two bumpy crash-landings that look about as realistic as the effects in his "Mars Attacks!"). And it backs away from any kind of risky complexity in its relationships.

The key couple consists of Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who is the human hero, and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the apes. They're attracted to each other but don't know what to do about it, and the screenplay gives them little help. Leo is also supposed to be linked romantically, I guess, with a curvy blond human named Daena (Estella Warren), but her role has been so abbreviated that basically all she does is follow along looking at Leo either significantly or winsomely, as circumstances warrant. At the end, he doesn't even bid her a proper farewell.

Leo, to be sure, is not one for effusive emotional outbursts. He's played by Wahlberg as a limited and narrow person with little imagination, who never seems very surprised by anything that happens to him--like, oh, to take a random example, crash-landing on a planet where the apes rule the humans. He's a space jockey type, trained in macho self-abnegation, who is great in a crisis but doesn't offer much in the way of conversation. His basic motivation seems to be to get himself off the planet, and to hell with the friends he leaves behind; he's almost surly sometimes as he leads his little band through the wilderness.

The most "human" character in the movie is, in fact, the chimpanzee Ari, who believes all species were created equal, casts her lot with the outcast humans, and tells Leo, "you're sensitive--a welcome quality in a man." Helena Bonham Carter invests this character with warmth, personality and distinctive body language; she has a way of moving that kids itself.

There's also juice in a character named Limbo (Paul Giamatti), a scam artist who has a deal for everyone, and a lot of funny one-liners. That he sounds like a carnival pitch-man should not be held against him.

The major ape characters include the fearsome Gen. Thade (Tim Roth), his strong but occasionally thoughtful gorilla lieutenant Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sen. Sandar (David Warner), who is a parliamentary leader and Ari's father. There's also a cameo for Charlton Heston, as a wise old ape who inevitably introduces a gun into the plot and has a curmudgeonly exit line. Watching the apes is fun all during the movie, while watching the humans usually isn't; the movie works hard to bring the apes to life, but unwisely thinks the humans can take care of themselves.

It's interesting that several different simian species co-exist in the planet's ape society. It may be a little hard to account for that, given the logic of the movie, although I will say no more. One major change between this film and the earlier one is that everyone--apes and humans--speak English. The movie explains why the apes speak English, but fudges on how they learned to speak at all.

The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker's makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe, and there's one neat long shot of the ape city-mountain that looks, when you squint a little, like Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." There are lines inviting laughs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice") and others unwisely inviting groans ("If you show me the way out of here--I promise I'll show you something that will change your life forever"). And a priceless moment when Leo wants to stop the squabbling among his fugitive group of men and apes and barks: "Shut up! That goes for all species!"

"Planet of the Apes" is the kind of movie that you enjoy at times, admire at times, even really like at times, but is it necessary? Given how famous and familiar Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film is, Tim Burton had some kind of an obligation to either top it, or sidestep it. Instead, he pays homage. He calls this version a "reimaging," and so it is, but a reinvention might have been better. Burton's work can show a wild and crazed imagination, but here he seems reined in. He's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

Let's make a tradition of this!

From the article:

No one knows that better than Clarke. At a recent technology conference in San Diego, the creator of FreeNet told a packed lecture hall that the record industry needs more than money to lure savvy computer workers.

Clarke seemed bemused by the suggestion that a major label should have recruited him. "Like I'd take a job with them," Clarke later scoffed. "Like anyone with any sense would do that."

I'm sending an email to Bruce Perens and RMS about this. Here is what the mail says:

There is an article at http://www .calendarlive.com/calendarlive/movies/20000130/t00 0009450.html which was written by Jack Valenti, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. (you may have seen this on Slashdot already)

Like other people such as myself, this really ticks me off. Big business is able to get mouth time and is able to write articles for the LA Times, while the people in the open-source community have little or no say over these matters and are frequently considered a negative impact on society.

While I was chatting in IRC I figured that someone should do a mass protest at the courthouse where this is taking place, or even one of the several federal buildings in this country (making sure this doesn't turn violent and cause negative publicity) As citizens we have the right to protest peacefully. If we do not do so the government has every opportunity to bias themselves toward the MPAA and to consider us as "weak."

Another possibility would be to borrow a DVD recorder and a computer that can play DVD's and record a video about how encryption isn't even necessary in order to copy and redistribute DVD's. The video would be given to the defendents' lawyers as evidence or even to the MPAA itself.

Unfortunately I can't do any of these things because of school, but I will support you or anyone else if this does take place. Thank you for letting me be heard.

A letter similiar to this could be sent to open leaders of the Open-Source movement, allowing more people to get involved in this. This is the only possible way it seems to get any action done.

(Note: for people outside the USA, try protesting outside your nearest US Embassy :)

To buy from Amazon despite their patent stupidity?
To instead support reel.com, who are paying the LA times to print articles like Jack Valenti's rant's against DeCSS (check out the ads, they appear to have an exclusive).

Meanwhile I can only purchase videotape, which seems reasonable since the MPAA doesn't want me to spend money on their products if I'm only going to watch them on Linux.

I think I'll watch what may be the worst Superbowl in history and realize that the real purpose of the Internet is online trading. It would have been nice if the digital Christopher Reeve looked better. I think watching his dad in front of a blue screen looked more realistic...

Final decision? I don't see a reason to increase the money of reel.com or amazon.com because they're both acting like jerks. If Lucas doesn't want me to watch his film and the MPAA feel the same way they don't need my money either. I think I'll make a trip to the local small science fiction specialty bookstore tomorrow. They deserve my money more than anyone else.

-----

Jon, didn't have time to do much research for your latest, did you?

1. Lucasfilm is independently owned and as such Lucas represents the triumph of the artist over the corporation (Fox)

2. Fox, a unit of News Corp. is projected to make $100 Million profit via distribution on The Phantom Menace.

2a. Fox owns the distribution of the other 3 Star Wars movies, not Lucasfilm.

3. Lucas's first Star Wars single-handedly SAVED 21st Century Fox which was completely floundering in 1977.

4. RE: Lucasfilm and marketing, Jim Ward, head of marketing at Lucasfilm"
Jim Ward, head of marketing at Lucasfilm, said the official site was partly born out of an awareness that especially after the first three "Star Wars" films were re-released in 1997, a new generation of fans was created--one that happened to be very Web-savvy. The site was always intended, however, as more than a sales pitch. "Our site was really established as a way for us to communicate with our core fans. They've sustained us all these years, and we wanted to make sure there was one place they could go to get the official information as promptly as possible," Ward said.

5. My rant:
Your age is showing. You have no idea what it was like to see the first Star Wars movie at the age of 7, at the height of the Divorce Years and Looking for Mr. Goodbar morality playing its way through the suburbs, when as a kid, you saw everything falling to shit all around you, and you went to this movie just expecting to see the same hokiness as the Sinbad movies and instead you experienced something that was less like a movie and more like a code of ethics you could live by.
A universe where people helped each other at the risk of their own life...A universe where Good and Evil was concrete and knowable...A universe where integrity, bravery, and belief mattered.

If the Phantom Menace touches 7 year olds the way Star Wars touched me when I was 7, then May the Universe Bless George Lucas!