Slashdot Mirror

Here's a review from someone who purposefully avoided the TV show. He's a great independent reviewer. He gave it three stars out of four.

Blade Runner is very much a social commentary, like all of Phillip K. Dick's work. Alien is a much simpler story.

Both of them are great and original movies, however I agree with you that Blade Runner is the better one. My reason for posting this reply is that I'd like to mention another PKD-based movie that I feel has been somewhat underrated: Paul Verhoefen's "Total Recall" with Arnie in one of his better impersonations. On the inner level, the movie is very much about the same things as Blade Runner. James Berardinelli says it much better than I'm able to, in this review:

In an era when it has become scientifically feasible to implant false memories directly into a person's mind, wipe out a previous identity, and create a fictitious personae so real that the subject believes it to be genuine, how does one know what is and what isn't authentic? This is the question that Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and, to a lesser extent, the audience, must ponder. How much of his life is real? How many of his memories actually happened and which ones have been manufactured?

Even if Total Recall doesn't belong in any Top 100 list (maybe with the exception of the "Top 100 Worst Last Five Minutes" which is really awful), chances are good that people who appreciates Alien and Blade Runner enjoys this movie too. At least, I do.

Positive review of SW2 #1
Positive Review of SW2 #2
Positive review of SW2 #3, #4, #5

So why are positive reviews for SW3 surprising?

Another problem is sound editting. They didn't pad the room or use the right equipment or filters or something... you can hear all kinds of sounds and noise when the actors talk, making it sound like it was recorded in a bedroom.

Very true. Again, that's one of those things that's hard, and potentially expensive to do right. Then again, there's the issue of knowing your constraints. That, IMHO, is why Troops was so good. They knew sound and lighting and make-up were really the hard parts, so they managed to write something that required a minimum of it: Everything was shot outside in bright sun so lighting issues are minimised. 90% of the dialog is from the troopers and can hence be recorded separately in sound booth afterwards. Everyone is in costume (which was a point they were apparently very good at, and used to the hilt) except Beru and Owen, who are supposed to look a little haggard and distressed anyway - make-up becomes a non-issue.

The truly great amateur films are the ones that understand what they can do well, and what they don't have available, and manage to create something that fits neatly inside those constraints. Being so constrained is a little more limiting, but if you're really creative in writing and direction you can often do wonders. There are some great Science Fiction films (Pi and Sticky Fingers of Time for instance) that were made on shoestring budgets. Knowing and playing to your limitations is what makes for a great low budget film.

Jedidiah.

Another problem is sound editting. They didn't pad the room or use the right equipment or filters or something... you can hear all kinds of sounds and noise when the actors talk, making it sound like it was recorded in a bedroom.

Very true. Again, that's one of those things that's hard, and potentially expensive to do right. Then again, there's the issue of knowing your constraints. That, IMHO, is why Troops was so good. They knew sound and lighting and make-up were really the hard parts, so they managed to write something that required a minimum of it: Everything was shot outside in bright sun so lighting issues are minimised. 90% of the dialog is from the troopers and can hence be recorded separately in sound booth afterwards. Everyone is in costume (which was a point they were apparently very good at, and used to the hilt) except Beru and Owen, who are supposed to look a little haggard and distressed anyway - make-up becomes a non-issue.

The truly great amateur films are the ones that understand what they can do well, and what they don't have available, and manage to create something that fits neatly inside those constraints. Being so constrained is a little more limiting, but if you're really creative in writing and direction you can often do wonders. There are some great Science Fiction films (Pi and Sticky Fingers of Time for instance) that were made on shoestring budgets. Knowing and playing to your limitations is what makes for a great low budget film.

Jedidiah.

Berardinelli gave Spiderman 2 three stars out of four, which is a fairly solid recommendation.

The 1976 remake had King Kong climbing up WTC.

If you can't enough make money in the first few years (and ideally the first year)of realease, why bother at all?

However, there are cases where movies which were never popularized under copyright flourish after the copyrights expire. The classic example of this is, of course, "It's A Wonderful Life". Although now one of the most-watched Christmas movies and most-imitated storylines, the initial reception for the movie was cool at best, with the movie barely making back the production costs. It wasn't until the copyrights expired that it began showing regularly every December and saw its popularity skyrocket.

If there'd been the same trend towards perpetual copyrights back then as there are today, we all would have missed out on this kind of gem. The public (especially later generations) got to see a movie that would probably have otherwise disappeared into the discount bin, and he studios lost nothing from the experience (it wasn't until IAWL was out of copyright that it took off). In fact, given how often the formula for IAWL has been copied, it could be argued that they've benefited by using its popularity to spawn a bunch of derivative works, which they later capitalized on. (I've lost count of how many TV shows and movies have used this theme.) It's unfortunate that the studios seem to prefer to take the shortsighted "milk-it-to-the-last-drop" view to a more longer-term and broader perspective.

Your comment is accurate, but depressing.

The early explorations of the Americas, IIRC, were intended to 1) find a shorter route from point A to point B, 2) exploit the resources, and 3) establish settlements. Unfortunately, none of these lead directly to getting more manned missions:

1) Space, like the American continents, isn't a shortcut to anywhere (although communicaions satellites do provide a "shortcut" for information -- but not people).

2) It's still cheaper to rape Earth-bound resources than it is to mine an asteroid (unless it's made of solid gold, of course).

3) In the countries that currently have the ability to launch manned rockets, life just isn't miserable enough to leave -- at least, not on a rocket.

I'm very encouraged by the development of manned rocketry by countries like China and India -- where there *are* conditions miserable enough for people to make a Mayflower-like pilgrimage to the stars in search of a better life. I don't see boatloads of US citizens lining up to launch into space to avoid road rage.

Watch Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." It's the EXACT SAME STORY as Star Wars, only in feudal Japan. Lucas has admitted as such (though the reference escapes me).

What about a few summer books, as well as books for fall, winter and spring???

I don't mean to troll, but c'mon one book for the whole summer? I know schooling systems are getting worse everywhere, but I expected more of the /. crowd.

Reading is good for you. Books stimulate your brain, improve your writing skills, and good ones are fun as hell to read! (Even the not so good ones can be fun, sometimes).

My picks would be anything by Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert or Isaac Asimov. Maybe also Phillip J. Farmer or Gordon Dickson. Don't want Sci-Fi, how about Umberto Eco? Feeling esoteric? Try Fritjof Capra. If you're also onto trippy stuff, how about Carlos Castaneda (he's just passed away, so let's pay him homage).

On a final note, take some suggestions you find in this thread, spare a couple of hours and go to a local library or book store (used or new). Get a few books and enjoy. Oh, and please don't watch the movies (like these: RAH, FH, PJF) instead of the books. Only afterwards... maybe.

I have hosted with them for eight years,
both personally and also professionally
for School.Net and Sun Microsystems.

Pros:
- Definitely the most dependable host I've used.
- Easy to ramp up more bandwidth, disk, speed, etc.
- Most everything you need is automated
- Very fast email support from a real person

Cons:
- Not on the cutting edge (older Slackware, no J2EE)
- No handholding, so you need to know what you're doing
- No marketing fluff, so hard to pitch to your CEO
- Atypical compared to most large ISP hosts.

For comparison I've hosted on everything from
Interland, Exodus, Digex, Geocities, and Rackspace.

Colossus.Net gives the best service IMHO,
and I'm happy to share details with anyone here.
BTW I'm not affiliated except as a satisfied customer.

Cheers, Joel

Bluetooth + WiFi + GSM = "a fish?"

I knew we had fish genes in tomatoes, but now in silicon chips? What else could the codename possibly allude to? (wait...you know the movie right? for those of you who were too young, there's a classic 1988 movie "a fish called wanda")

Seriously, how are they coming up with those acronyms?

Ok, you can get back to posting intelligent comments, now ;-p

hehehe...

Mad Max meets Prisilla: Queent of the Desert

this could certainly put a new twist into Mad Mad!

1. James Bond films don't need reviewing. Everyone knows exactly what they're going to get ... explosions, nasty baddies, Bond being cool, gadgets and girls.

not everyone who supports copyrights, etc, are rich. whould you work for free?

You seem to be implying that copyrights ensure that the people who did the "work" would get paid. This is cerainly not true. In many cases, the people who did the work are long dead. I'd be delighted to work for free after I'm dead. Some are even copyrighting things which have already been placed into the public domain. The whole thing has become a mockery of the original intent.

First, for those who want a real review, try this page.

I will give Jon credit where credit is due: His overall description of the movie, though poorly written, isn't too far off the mark. But as usual, there's some important information left out. For example, one of the reasons that the director became involved in the movie is because his own child was on a donated organ recipient list. An important tidbit when trying to understand why the movie may be the way it is. Background research never hurt anyone, Jon. If you're gonna use Slashdot's bandwidth to review a movie, at least try to make it somewhat insightful.

Speaking of which, why is this review even included on Slashdot? What is the "geekiness" factor of this movie?

John Q is contemporary Hollywood's idea of an issue movie: preachiness hiding behind a superstar.

*sigh*

Better read as "Jon Katz is Slashdot's idea of a columnist: preachiness hiding behind a Net celebrity."

It doesn't seem as though many movie critics are acknowledging this as a "true" film. Whereas the majority of recent theatrical releases have already been reviewed at least 40 to 70 times, the Movie Review Query Engine lists only 14 reviews for Kung Pow.

Roger Ebert hasn't released a review for the movie, either. Oh, and all 14 of the reviews are negative. It appears that everything remotely amusing was included in the trailer.

Katz is, for once, correct. Skip the movie; read James Berardinelli's review instead. It's probably more humorous than the actual film.

Just go here and click "Kill GoTo Spammers!" to do damage.

Without filling in the edit box, it'll randomly choose 10-20 spammers to target. It loads the http://www.goto.com search page for "bulk+email" and then clicks on the top N links. Each click costs a certain amount of money (currently, the top link is worth $1.25). (I just ran it for 10 spammers, and did $9.59 worth of damage.)

Note that the script is written such that it can be run from the command-line or through a CGI. If you want source, Lenny has graciously provided a page for my work.

Enjoy!

Every element which you and Jon described as 'awful' is funny because it takes off things that happened for real, and the movie works so well because of the strong cast who play their part to perfection. If the rest of the American audiences are as dimwitted as J. Katz, then:

• I will continue laughing for some time
• The movie will be a much greater hit overseas than in America.

Perhaps this might be one way to go, as there are many people saying you'd have to be crazy to start an ISP these days.

As others have mentioned, we only do support through email. This makes it easier to be specific and exact when telling a customer what to do, and allows us to interact with the customers when our time permits (we answer all calls within 24 hours).

We're in the USA. I'm not sure how well this business plan would translate to Australia, but as I said above, the margins should be better than running an ISP.
--

!!SPOILERS!!

To the author -- if you ever review Time Enough For Love, PLEASE do not say ANYTHING about the last section (Da Capo onwards). Thanks :) For the sake of all those poor souls who have not read SIASL and/or TEFL and want the maximum enjoyment.

This is one of those "here, read this" books. Not something you sell based on its content.

As an aside.. free email with SIASL domain (yes that's my address), and here is a movie-review site with exactly the style of reviews that is perfect in information release: JB's -- don't know how many films I've gone to see based on those reviews, and there's only been one ever that I disagree with. :)

Bad movies have problems in at least one, but usually more than one of these areas. I think that criticizing the science in a sci-fi movie may often simply be an easy way to point out the movie's lack of integrity. If one had the time to sit down and write a long analysis and critique of, say, the character development and interaction (or lack thereof), one could demonstrate that a movie was equally weak in those areas; however, on /., simply pointing out gaping flaws in the science is a shorthand for "if they got this wrong, what are the chances they got *anything* right?"

Red Planet is a bit too new, but search the web for reviews of Mission to Mars, and you'll find plenty like this one: "director Brian De Palma has reached a new nadir", "Ineptly directed, badly acted, and scripted with an eye towards stupidity and incoherence, the film is worthwhile only to those who are in desperate need of a nap. And, as is often the case when a big budget, high profile motion picture self-destructs, this one does so in spectacular fashion." Now that reviewer is my kinda guy! :)

As for Battlestar Galactica, well, perhaps we do come from totally different universes...

James Berardinelli has his review available on the Reelviews web site.

For those not familiar with Berardinell, he's one of the internet's finest and most prolific film critics.

For another movie with a lot of Capoeira, see the fun flick "Only The Strong", starring Mark Dacascus.
Be prepared for a mediocre plot, but great Capoeira!

(Well, I liked it a lot, anyway!!)

He doesn't pretend to be qualified to tell us about God. Any comments he makes are to satisfy the great majority of lamers who reject science because their church tells them to.
Why does Contact come to mind?