You are right and I concede two of your points: that the shakiness was not as bad as in other movies, and that there may be reasons to shake the camera a bit in order to make the point that it is a hand-held camera "in the field" and not an omnipresent viewpoint.
That said, however, District 9 had more shaky-cam than I thought was necessary, and at times was indeed distracting (though certainly not at the level of "Bourne Supremacy"). Judging by the comments of others, even if it is a matter of opinion, this seems to be a popular one.
There are indeed a few "news" clips that show some support for the aliens, even some citizens in protests against MNU, carrying signs that say things like "I [heart] prawns"; though these are brief and few.
The fact that the "media" in that alternate reality chose to largely ignore this and offer the more popular viewpoint of condemnation against the aliens seems to be self-serving and, thus, verisimilar.
Luckily, my brain and visual cortex conspire to compensate and stabilize the images as best as they can when my body is in an unstable situation, such as a jumpy car or while running. While watching shaky-cam movies in a perfectly stable sitting position, my brain cannot do the same as effectively.
The shaky camera was to give the camera man some life and humanity.
To say that is to deny the humanity and life of so many wonderful movies that have come before this technique came into vogue, during the almost 100 years of film. There was a time when people took great pains and built amazingly complex contraptions to stabilize a moving camera, in an effort to offer the audience a view unconstrained by the physical impediments of "being there", because it was understood that such visual artifacts merely distracted from, and did not add anything to the experience the film maker was attempting to convey.
Even war documentaries are not as shaky as most movies are done nowadays, because the cinematographer tries very hard to show an interesting picture, not purported "realism".
Did you even read the rest of my comment? I would imagine that the statement "[o]n a serious note," on the second paragraph would imply the preceding comment was made in jest.
You know, it occurs to me that the day someone invents and markets a light and low-cost gyroscopic steady-cam that is easy to carry on the field, an entire genre of Hollywood movies will suddenly die a death in relevancy.
Uh, is it improper to point out that it is based on a 10 minute--and dare I say, superior--short film by the director? Not a bona-fide sequel, but not exactly freshly minted original material either.
Perhaps it is because it is unnecessary to prove prior art by pointing out even priorer art?
You are right, but that does not change the fact that the aliens-from-space-cum-second-class-citizens has been done before District 9, which was the point.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is another EVIL CORPORATION movie. Not only that, it also has an EVIL CEO who directs the EVIL CORPORATION, and carries out their EVIL PLAN.
On a serious note, I'd say that the movie has fantastic special effects, a great premise, and superb acting; but it falls just short of greatness by its many flaws in execution and scope. This makes it even more disappointing than a regular bad movie, because it is so obvious that it has such great potential, and this potential will now never be exploited properly. It is not a bad movie with some good moments; it is a fantastically great movie with distressingly too many flaws, which makes its fall from grace so poignant and frustrating.
The first half of the movie is pure exposition, relating what has happened so far, and how the aliens came to their current situation. It is done in a pseudo-documentary style, with a montage of mock news segments from various sources. Frankly, it is over-wrought and slow, and not very effective at conveying the full story. I promise you that I was able to absorb much more information regarding the back-story from Blokamp's 10 minute short film, Alive in Josburg, than what's offered in Distric 9's much longer preamble.
That said, it is definitely worth the ticket price (especially if you catch a half-price matinee, as I did), if at least to experience his vision for yourself and to form your own opinion. The visual effects alone are a sight to behold (think a "Ratchet and Clank" style of over-the-top-tech weapons!).
It is Blomkamp's very first feature film, and sadly it shows. However, perhaps it proves him enough within the industry so that he may get a second chance at directing. I'll be watching out for anything he makes in the future, and hope he does not waste his talent in a "Second-System-Syndrome" type of production, like George Lucas and the Wachowski brothers did.
And what "hype" is that? That Amazon's EC2 and S3 are PCI compliant? I've never heard such a claim.
Amazon even offers a payment processing service, for an additional fee. Why would they take the risk involved in compliancy for their cheaper solutions?
The sequels may not be so bad, but you'll want to steer clear of the prequels--those suck enough to destroy most good memories of the others.
Also, ignore any comments from the writer/director about how it all completes his original vision and how the prequels follow the original intent of his very first script; it's all bullsh*t, especially the part about the alien shooting first.
PCI: Payment Card Industry. The full acronym should be PCI DSS for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. AWS: Amazon Web Services, an API offered by Amazon to allow access to their internal back-end. QSA: Quality Security Assesors, security firms certified by the PCI council to audit payment card processors. EC2: Elastic Computing Cloud, Amazon's virtualized hosting system. S3: Simple Storage Service, Amazon's cheap web-based storage.
Here's a straighforward response: If you can't find any documentation on it anywhere and if, as you say, Amazon seems to avoid the question, then it is pretty much safe to assume that you should not store your credit card numbers in such system.
Being "PCI compliant" is hardly a skeleton in the closet, so I doubt any vendor would shy from offering such assurance if it were available.
Slashdot Mirror
There is not a shred of evidence to support that Sophia Stewart penned the Matrix or Terminator. [1] citation needed
You are right and I concede two of your points: that the shakiness was not as bad as in other movies, and that there may be reasons to shake the camera a bit in order to make the point that it is a hand-held camera "in the field" and not an omnipresent viewpoint.
That said, however, District 9 had more shaky-cam than I thought was necessary, and at times was indeed distracting (though certainly not at the level of "Bourne Supremacy"). Judging by the comments of others, even if it is a matter of opinion, this seems to be a popular one.
-dZ.
There are indeed a few "news" clips that show some support for the aliens, even some citizens in protests against MNU, carrying signs that say things like "I [heart] prawns"; though these are brief and few.
The fact that the "media" in that alternate reality chose to largely ignore this and offer the more popular viewpoint of condemnation against the aliens seems to be self-serving and, thus, verisimilar.
-dZ.
A hint is "superb acting". Pay attention.
-dZ.
Sounds good. This is what SF is all about (rather than special effects).
Actually, it takes place in Johansenburg, South Africa, not in San Fancisco.
-dZ.
How the fuck do you drive
Luckily, my brain and visual cortex conspire to compensate and stabilize the images as best as they can when my body is in an unstable situation, such as a jumpy car or while running. While watching shaky-cam movies in a perfectly stable sitting position, my brain cannot do the same as effectively.
The shaky camera was to give the camera man some life and humanity.
To say that is to deny the humanity and life of so many wonderful movies that have come before this technique came into vogue, during the almost 100 years of film. There was a time when people took great pains and built amazingly complex contraptions to stabilize a moving camera, in an effort to offer the audience a view unconstrained by the physical impediments of "being there", because it was understood that such visual artifacts merely distracted from, and did not add anything to the experience the film maker was attempting to convey.
Even war documentaries are not as shaky as most movies are done nowadays, because the cinematographer tries very hard to show an interesting picture, not purported "realism".
-dZ.
Did you even read the rest of my comment? I would imagine that the statement "[o]n a serious note," on the second paragraph would imply the preceding comment was made in jest.
-dZ.
You know, it occurs to me that the day someone invents and markets a light and low-cost gyroscopic steady-cam that is easy to carry on the field, an entire genre of Hollywood movies will suddenly die a death in relevancy.
-dZ.
Uh, is it improper to point out that it is based on a 10 minute--and dare I say, superior--short film by the director? Not a bona-fide sequel, but not exactly freshly minted original material either.
-dZ.
Perhaps it is because it is unnecessary to prove prior art by pointing out even priorer art?
You are right, but that does not change the fact that the aliens-from-space-cum-second-class-citizens has been done before District 9, which was the point.
-dZ.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is another EVIL CORPORATION movie. Not only that, it also has an EVIL CEO who directs the EVIL CORPORATION, and carries out their EVIL PLAN.
On a serious note, I'd say that the movie has fantastic special effects, a great premise, and superb acting; but it falls just short of greatness by its many flaws in execution and scope. This makes it even more disappointing than a regular bad movie, because it is so obvious that it has such great potential, and this potential will now never be exploited properly. It is not a bad movie with some good moments; it is a fantastically great movie with distressingly too many flaws, which makes its fall from grace so poignant and frustrating.
The first half of the movie is pure exposition, relating what has happened so far, and how the aliens came to their current situation. It is done in a pseudo-documentary style, with a montage of mock news segments from various sources. Frankly, it is over-wrought and slow, and not very effective at conveying the full story. I promise you that I was able to absorb much more information regarding the back-story from Blokamp's 10 minute short film, Alive in Josburg, than what's offered in Distric 9's much longer preamble.
That said, it is definitely worth the ticket price (especially if you catch a half-price matinee, as I did), if at least to experience his vision for yourself and to form your own opinion. The visual effects alone are a sight to behold (think a "Ratchet and Clank" style of over-the-top-tech weapons!).
It is Blomkamp's very first feature film, and sadly it shows. However, perhaps it proves him enough within the industry so that he may get a second chance at directing. I'll be watching out for anything he makes in the future, and hope he does not waste his talent in a "Second-System-Syndrome" type of production, like George Lucas and the Wachowski brothers did.
-dZ.
And what "hype" is that? That Amazon's EC2 and S3 are PCI compliant? I've never heard such a claim.
Amazon even offers a payment processing service, for an additional fee. Why would they take the risk involved in compliancy for their cheaper solutions?
-dZ.
Ha! Sorry.
AWS: Amazon Web Services, a programming interfaces so that applications can interact with Amazon's back end.
-dZ.
The sequels may not be so bad, but you'll want to steer clear of the prequels--those suck enough to destroy most good memories of the others.
Also, ignore any comments from the writer/director about how it all completes his original vision and how the prequels follow the original intent of his very first script; it's all bullsh*t, especially the part about the alien shooting first.
-dZ.
Alien Nation.
-dZ.
PCI: Payment Card Industry. The full acronym should be PCI DSS for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
AWS: Amazon Web Services, an API offered by Amazon to allow access to their internal back-end.
QSA: Quality Security Assesors, security firms certified by the PCI council to audit payment card processors.
EC2: Elastic Computing Cloud, Amazon's virtualized hosting system.
S3: Simple Storage Service, Amazon's cheap web-based storage.
Cheers!
-dZ.
Here's a straighforward response: If you can't find any documentation on it anywhere and if, as you say, Amazon seems to avoid the question, then it is pretty much safe to assume that you should not store your credit card numbers in such system.
Being "PCI compliant" is hardly a skeleton in the closet, so I doubt any vendor would shy from offering such assurance if it were available.
-dZ.
>> For now at least, the official verdict is if you need to process credit cards, the Amazon cloud platform is off the table.
May I be the first one to say, no Duh!
-dZ.
Ha ha! Cut him some slack, it's probably because the kit did not contain the written instructions, with pictures, of the two line program.
-dZ.
Fair enough, then:
I'm not suprised he put the CPU in backwards if he can't organize his pictures coherently...
Kit tested, Wozster approved.
-dZ.
That's what she said!
-dZ.
No no, it's just magic. Provable magic, though.
-dZ.
Or, stupid kids come from lying sleezbag parents.
-dZ.
My great-grandparents and grandparents were educated in the 1800-1950. How do you feel now?
-dZ.