I thought book five was pretty good, but six was where things really started slowing down (though it was still not too bad). Books seven and eight moved along at a very sluggish pace, book nine (Winter's Heart) was a bit faster. Book 10, however, took the cake. I actually got mad reading it when I realized I'd gone through 400 pages and not a single thing had happened. Not a -single- plot thread had moved forward. All he'd done is cut between the six plot threads he had going and have everyone spend busy time doing nothing.
Book 11 though, Knife of Dreams was much better. It finally brought back a little bit of energy that the earlier books had. I think it was because Robert Jordan woke up and finally realized "oh damn, I have to start wrapping things up here." Plot threads finally closed, some issues were actually resolved.
It's very clear that Jordan just didn't have a good enough plot to sustain the story through 12 books. This really should have been more of a 9-book series. Cut out some of the secondary pointless characters. Tighten the story up a little and keep things moving like J.K. Rowling was so adept at and you might have had a real fantasy literary masterpiece.
Not only that but they've gotten on Scientology's bad side for posting their internal documents as well. Let's see.. WikiLeaks antagonizes those with power in multiple governments AND they have the always litigious Scientologists after them..
While I disagree with many things in the article, the lawyer was correct to characterize the GPLv3 as placing the highest importance on the freedom of the software. The GPL has always been about keeping the software itself free, and that's what differentiates it from the BSD license or public domain. It is the hope that by decreasing one freedom (the developer's freedom to use the source without distributing changes in source form) that you will be increasing overall freedom.
don't take other's GPL code and try to close that off, that's theft
This was already against the GPLv2 and is not what is at stake here. The GPLv3 addresses different topics.
Of course it does. Supply = infinity, so price = zero. Exactly what you would expect from the relationship of supply, demand, and price.
Except that supply isn't really infinity, just the marginal manufacturing cost is. Restrictions are placed upon supply (you can't get your 0 marginal cost copy without plunking down $50 or whatever) by the manufacturers.
The only frustrated ones are folks like me who get annoyed when the Tivo won't let us transfer the shows off the box. Tivo is nice, but occasionally they'll lock the owner out of things the owner really wants to do but that the content distributors aren't too keen on, and is pretty much the only reason why I'd want to run MythTV instead.
Let us also not ignore that MediaDefender has no right to go onto Revision3's servers without permission, fuckstick. That in and of itself is illegal.
I suppose I'm being pedantic here, but while the DoS part is quite illegal, merely "going onto" a server is not illegal at all, unless hacking into it is involved. Publicly accessible server, accepting content? It's not illegal to upload content then, as much as overly litigious lawyers may try to argue that you need permission to access a server indiscriminately accepting public connections.
There were a number of areas that Disney excelled at that don't always come to mind when thinking of animated movies. Sure, he was quite creative and loved to mess around with technical innovations ("Fantasound" in 1940 was the precursor to today's surroundsound), but he was also an incredible showman, knowing just how to present work to potential investors, potential actors, anyone he needed to. Despite the grand illustrious history of Disney, money was often quite tight, and Walt was better than anyone at getting sponsorships. It's how he managed to build the dreams he had.
I would consider Disney to have had two great "golden ages." The first was the classic Disney era: Snow White in the 30s through Sleeping Beauty, Jungle Book, etc. The second was the revitalization of Disney in the late 80s and early 90s with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and the Lion King. Sadly, it wasn't long at all before that Disney era faded.
It's nearly impossible to find (Disney's done a great job suppressing it), but a great documentary is The Sweatbox, shot by Sting's wife on the set of Empire of the Sun, a project which was amazingly tumultuous, eventually resulting in the removal of its director, rewrite of the script, and retooling as Emperor's New Groove. It's a little slanted towards making Sting look good, but other than that, not a bad look at the inner workings of the Mouse House.
I can't rate Alien or Aliens against each other because they're two different genres, two different types of movies but set in the same universe. I consider them to be best of breed in their own genres and I refuse to pit genres against one another.
A lot of people will disagree with you about it. I personally feel it was one of the better entries in the series, and it was one of the few mainstream crossover entries. Star Trek had a very good run of the even-numbered movies until the very last one: II. Wrath of Khan: Doesn't get better than this. IV. The Voyage Home: More lighthearted, crew comradery at its best. VI. The Undiscovered Country: Another good action/adventure. VIII. First Contact: By far the best movie (I would say the only good movie) featuring the TNG crew. X. Nemesis: BLEEEEUURURRRRGG.
There is one thing you aren't considering though: critics tend to treat all movies as if they are from the same genre. You wouldn't compare Half-Baked to The Shawshank Redemption...
Reviewers may disagree with you on that. Roger Ebert explicitly states that the star system is more useful when comparing movies in a certain genre, not across genres. He admits that when he gives, say, Lawrence of Arabia four stars and Scream four stars, those rating cannot be compared because they difference genres and thus the reviews use different criteria. For him, Scream was a four-star horror/thriller movie, but it's had to rate it against other genres.
It's one reason I don't like the Oscar's "Best Movie of the Year" designation because a lot of genres simply aren't allowed to compete.
Sorry, typo. "was when he gave the Golden Compass and proclaimed it the best fantasy film in ages" should read: "was when he gave the Golden Compass four stars and proclaimed it the best fantasy film in ages."
Unfortunately I don't trust Ebert's tastes anymore. He used to be, by far, my favorite movie reviewer, and I read his columns with great enjoyment. I didn't always agree, but more often-than-not I did.
And then came his cancer and various treatments and convalescence. After a long break he returned to reviewing movies, but I noticed a change. He suddenly seemed a lot easier on bad or mediocre movies, and the four-star reviews were given out like candy. I don't agree with his assertion that late 2007 was simply an incredible time for movies, I really feel that something has changed with him and he's more generous than he used to be, or even should be as a movie reviewer. I think the point that really hit home for me was when he gave the Golden Compass and proclaimed it the best fantasy film in ages, better than Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etcetc. It is clearly a film with good, albeit wasted potential, one that starts strong and contains a very very poor third act. Given all the Ebert columns I've read over the years, I am convinced that had the Golden Compass come out three years ago, it would have gotten a 2 or a 2.5 (out of four) star review. Now, if Ebert likes a movie, I still have no idea if it's good or if I'll like it.
Also, many reviews on his site are written by Jim Emerson, his fellow Chicago Sun-Times writer. He doesn't see as many movies since his cancer surgery, and I have no hope that he'll ever return to Ebert and Roeper At the Movies on TV.
I totally agree. I liked the ideas presented in the second movie, and the ending raised so many interesting possibilities. Was the 'real world' where they really were? Or were they in another section of the Matrix? Or better yet was the 'real world' really just another matrix? Was it like an onion, with layer after layer of matrices? Maybe that's how the machines dealt with that small percentage of humans who rebelled against the Matrix world -- put them in the matrix outside of that matrix but let them think they were fighting against that system when they were just another part of it. Those were the really cool concepts that I and others were thinking when we came out of Matrix Reloaded. Then we saw the third movie and saw what the Brothers W came up with wasn't -nearly- as interesting as what the fans came up with. "Oh, all that stuff? Forget about it. Neo has powers in the real world now." Fucking cop-out. Plus, a fight with CG Neo versus a bunch of CG Smiths is just not very interesting.
Oh yeah, and Trinity, you know, the character that Neo spends pretty much the entire second movie sacrificing so much to save, even willing to choose her over Zion (that's another thing, the Architect gives him a choice and he makes his decision.. a decision that ended up having no consequence)? Yeah, she ends up dying anyway. Pretty pointlessly too. I hate it when later movies just crap over the themes of earlier ones. For me it's why the Alien franchise ended after Aliens. There was no Alien 3 or Alien 4. "You know the little girl you risked everything to save? She dies off-screen in the first five minutes in the next movie."
What I thought strange was how.. un-MichaelBay-like the last half of Transformers seemed. Shia LaBouf and Peter Cullins actually made that movie watchable. The giant robots were so poorly designed that scenes of two robots fighting were just.. boring. You couldn't understand what was happening, you couldn't tell where one robot ended and the other began, even looking at them separately it was hard to tell if that was Jazz or Bumblebee, or one of those other forgettable robots.. The action there was muddy which was very un-Bay-like. The early action scenes with the helicopter Decepticon destroying the military base, and the Scorpion-like decepticon getting destroyed by the US military are fantastic. Bay's best work, IMO.
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What 80GB versions? The 40GB ones are the only ones sold in stores now, and the only way to get an 80GB one is to plunk down $800-$900 on eBay.
I thought book five was pretty good, but six was where things really started slowing down (though it was still not too bad). Books seven and eight moved along at a very sluggish pace, book nine (Winter's Heart) was a bit faster. Book 10, however, took the cake. I actually got mad reading it when I realized I'd gone through 400 pages and not a single thing had happened. Not a -single- plot thread had moved forward. All he'd done is cut between the six plot threads he had going and have everyone spend busy time doing nothing.
Book 11 though, Knife of Dreams was much better. It finally brought back a little bit of energy that the earlier books had. I think it was because Robert Jordan woke up and finally realized "oh damn, I have to start wrapping things up here." Plot threads finally closed, some issues were actually resolved.
It's very clear that Jordan just didn't have a good enough plot to sustain the story through 12 books. This really should have been more of a 9-book series. Cut out some of the secondary pointless characters. Tighten the story up a little and keep things moving like J.K. Rowling was so adept at and you might have had a real fantasy literary masterpiece.
Not only that but they've gotten on Scientology's bad side for posting their internal documents as well. Let's see.. WikiLeaks antagonizes those with power in multiple governments AND they have the always litigious Scientologists after them..
While I disagree with many things in the article, the lawyer was correct to characterize the GPLv3 as placing the highest importance on the freedom of the software. The GPL has always been about keeping the software itself free, and that's what differentiates it from the BSD license or public domain. It is the hope that by decreasing one freedom (the developer's freedom to use the source without distributing changes in source form) that you will be increasing overall freedom.
don't take other's GPL code and try to close that off, that's theft
This was already against the GPLv2 and is not what is at stake here. The GPLv3 addresses different topics.
Except that supply isn't really infinity, just the marginal manufacturing cost is. Restrictions are placed upon supply (you can't get your 0 marginal cost copy without plunking down $50 or whatever) by the manufacturers.
The only frustrated ones are folks like me who get annoyed when the Tivo won't let us transfer the shows off the box. Tivo is nice, but occasionally they'll lock the owner out of things the owner really wants to do but that the content distributors aren't too keen on, and is pretty much the only reason why I'd want to run MythTV instead.
It is the 90s.. and it is time for KLAX.
That game and the Zeldas probably got more playtime on my original NES than any other.
Let us also not ignore that MediaDefender has no right to go onto Revision3's servers without permission, fuckstick. That in and of itself is illegal.
I suppose I'm being pedantic here, but while the DoS part is quite illegal, merely "going onto" a server is not illegal at all, unless hacking into it is involved. Publicly accessible server, accepting content? It's not illegal to upload content then, as much as overly litigious lawyers may try to argue that you need permission to access a server indiscriminately accepting public connections.
It's perfectly fine for any organization to side-step the justice system and act of their own accord should they feel slighted?
Hundreds of action movies have taught us that yes, it's totally fine to go outside the system if it doesn't work the way you like.
There were a number of areas that Disney excelled at that don't always come to mind when thinking of animated movies. Sure, he was quite creative and loved to mess around with technical innovations ("Fantasound" in 1940 was the precursor to today's surroundsound), but he was also an incredible showman, knowing just how to present work to potential investors, potential actors, anyone he needed to. Despite the grand illustrious history of Disney, money was often quite tight, and Walt was better than anyone at getting sponsorships. It's how he managed to build the dreams he had.
I would consider Disney to have had two great "golden ages." The first was the classic Disney era: Snow White in the 30s through Sleeping Beauty, Jungle Book, etc. The second was the revitalization of Disney in the late 80s and early 90s with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and the Lion King. Sadly, it wasn't long at all before that Disney era faded.
It's nearly impossible to find (Disney's done a great job suppressing it), but a great documentary is The Sweatbox, shot by Sting's wife on the set of Empire of the Sun, a project which was amazingly tumultuous, eventually resulting in the removal of its director, rewrite of the script, and retooling as Emperor's New Groove. It's a little slanted towards making Sting look good, but other than that, not a bad look at the inner workings of the Mouse House.
Shia Lebouf was the only good thing about the Transformers. Well, him and Peter Cullen.
I can't rate Alien or Aliens against each other because they're two different genres, two different types of movies but set in the same universe. I consider them to be best of breed in their own genres and I refuse to pit genres against one another.
A lot of people will disagree with you about it. I personally feel it was one of the better entries in the series, and it was one of the few mainstream crossover entries. Star Trek had a very good run of the even-numbered movies until the very last one:
II. Wrath of Khan: Doesn't get better than this.
IV. The Voyage Home: More lighthearted, crew comradery at its best.
VI. The Undiscovered Country: Another good action/adventure.
VIII. First Contact: By far the best movie (I would say the only good movie) featuring the TNG crew.
X. Nemesis: BLEEEEUURURRRRGG.
Another Spielburg movie which was a big impetus for creating PG-13: Poltergeist.
True, though her audition for Temple of Doom is where they first met.
There is one thing you aren't considering though: critics tend to treat all movies as if they are from the same genre. You wouldn't compare Half-Baked to The Shawshank Redemption...
Reviewers may disagree with you on that. Roger Ebert explicitly states that the star system is more useful when comparing movies in a certain genre, not across genres. He admits that when he gives, say, Lawrence of Arabia four stars and Scream four stars, those rating cannot be compared because they difference genres and thus the reviews use different criteria. For him, Scream was a four-star horror/thriller movie, but it's had to rate it against other genres.
It's one reason I don't like the Oscar's "Best Movie of the Year" designation because a lot of genres simply aren't allowed to compete.
He's the Paula Abdul of movie reviewers?
Sorry, typo. "was when he gave the Golden Compass and proclaimed it the best fantasy film in ages" should read: "was when he gave the Golden Compass four stars and proclaimed it the best fantasy film in ages."
Unfortunately I don't trust Ebert's tastes anymore. He used to be, by far, my favorite movie reviewer, and I read his columns with great enjoyment. I didn't always agree, but more often-than-not I did.
And then came his cancer and various treatments and convalescence. After a long break he returned to reviewing movies, but I noticed a change. He suddenly seemed a lot easier on bad or mediocre movies, and the four-star reviews were given out like candy. I don't agree with his assertion that late 2007 was simply an incredible time for movies, I really feel that something has changed with him and he's more generous than he used to be, or even should be as a movie reviewer. I think the point that really hit home for me was when he gave the Golden Compass and proclaimed it the best fantasy film in ages, better than Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etcetc. It is clearly a film with good, albeit wasted potential, one that starts strong and contains a very very poor third act. Given all the Ebert columns I've read over the years, I am convinced that had the Golden Compass come out three years ago, it would have gotten a 2 or a 2.5 (out of four) star review. Now, if Ebert likes a movie, I still have no idea if it's good or if I'll like it.
Also, many reviews on his site are written by Jim Emerson, his fellow Chicago Sun-Times writer. He doesn't see as many movies since his cancer surgery, and I have no hope that he'll ever return to Ebert and Roeper At the Movies on TV.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I totally agree. I liked the ideas presented in the second movie, and the ending raised so many interesting possibilities. Was the 'real world' where they really were? Or were they in another section of the Matrix? Or better yet was the 'real world' really just another matrix? Was it like an onion, with layer after layer of matrices? Maybe that's how the machines dealt with that small percentage of humans who rebelled against the Matrix world -- put them in the matrix outside of that matrix but let them think they were fighting against that system when they were just another part of it. Those were the really cool concepts that I and others were thinking when we came out of Matrix Reloaded. Then we saw the third movie and saw what the Brothers W came up with wasn't -nearly- as interesting as what the fans came up with. "Oh, all that stuff? Forget about it. Neo has powers in the real world now." Fucking cop-out. Plus, a fight with CG Neo versus a bunch of CG Smiths is just not very interesting.
Oh yeah, and Trinity, you know, the character that Neo spends pretty much the entire second movie sacrificing so much to save, even willing to choose her over Zion (that's another thing, the Architect gives him a choice and he makes his decision.. a decision that ended up having no consequence)? Yeah, she ends up dying anyway. Pretty pointlessly too. I hate it when later movies just crap over the themes of earlier ones. For me it's why the Alien franchise ended after Aliens. There was no Alien 3 or Alien 4. "You know the little girl you risked everything to save? She dies off-screen in the first five minutes in the next movie."
Lucas wrote the story, though others wrote the screenplay.
When was the last time Adam Sandler had a good movie? The Waterboy?
Punch Drunk Love, maybe? Some people liked Spanglish and 50 First Dates. IE, movies that weren't featuring Sandler-like characters.
What I thought strange was how.. un-MichaelBay-like the last half of Transformers seemed. Shia LaBouf and Peter Cullins actually made that movie watchable. The giant robots were so poorly designed that scenes of two robots fighting were just.. boring. You couldn't understand what was happening, you couldn't tell where one robot ended and the other began, even looking at them separately it was hard to tell if that was Jazz or Bumblebee, or one of those other forgettable robots.. The action there was muddy which was very un-Bay-like. The early action scenes with the helicopter Decepticon destroying the military base, and the Scorpion-like decepticon getting destroyed by the US military are fantastic. Bay's best work, IMO.