raimondas

Lithuania got talent? Yes, from Italy

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:12:30 GMT

The best audition on Lithuania got talent. Unfortunately, you have to understand Lithuanian to really appreciate the song. I want the one about kitten next, please. :)

Billionaire garage sale or Anyone wanna buy a castle?

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:07:59 GMT

Anyone want to buy a castle? A really nice castle? We can throw together our moolah and get it really cheap. Perhaps for less than $57mln asked. What a great place to host LARP, DnD, DaoC or murder mystery events! French maids not included. :/

Swine flu in DnD terms

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:08:58 GMT

Swine flu is very easy to understand. You have your character. Your character has these pets called immune system. And then these pets notice some mobs which are the swine flu viruses. The pets go "OMG, we need to destroy the mobs". So they cast AOE Drown spell on the mobs, but the Dungeon Master has forgotten to disable friendly fire, so your character gets lungs full of water and dies in result.

Cast water breathing to counteract or play no-pet class. :)

No cellphones in novels?? - pfftt, rite, not luddite

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:08:03 GMT

Matt Richtel complains in his New York Times article that current communication technology stops him from writing a Dan-Brown-beating thriller. His problem: he can't generate tension when everybody on Earth is instantly reachable through mobiles or Internets. Then he goes through the romp of showing how great works of art would had been wrecked by current inventions. He even seems to seriously suggest that writers should write about past to incorporate such tension full plot devices as missing a train and not being able to text the person waiting.

To which I say: pffttt. Book writers are already handicapped in the world of Internet, movies and computer games. Trying to become even more luddite by skipping back to 1940 or 1890 will not make your books more attractive, interesting or relevant. Even without going science-fiction or slipstream route, there are still lots of deeply philosophical, emotional and thrilling issues in this age of (not yet) total connectivity. "2B V ^2B" does not lose its power texted from the top of skyscraper in Singapore to a prepaid cell in South Africa just as its SMS quota runs out. Not understanding technology and its limitations is like tying one hand behind your back and then complaining that you cannot play great basketball. Great writers embrace today and not try to whine about it. For the whiners, I can say only SL&TFATF

Investing: Shengdatech, Inc and others

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:55:36 GMT

Just uploaded my most recent analysis of Shengdatech, Inc to my Value Investing site. Great time to be value investing. :)

"In the Name of the King"

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:07:37 GMT

"In the Name of the King" is one of the newest Uwe Boll productions. About 3.8 IMDB rating did not lead me to expect much. How misleading! It is actually a good movie with almost no game ("Dungeon Siege" mentioned in the full title) connection. Although the story is somewhat standard, there are many little moments that make it less cliched than other fantasy movies. <Spoilers below>

I liked the plot line of the aging king and the good-for-nothing nephew. The king is portrayed as a real man and not some kind of stereotype. He is nice and caring for the kingdom, but sees the dark future of kingdom being inherited by his nephew. And still he has no honorable way to remove the scoundrel.

It is a nice touch how everyone blames the said nephew for poisoning the king even though it was done by Gallian. A nice move away from the omniscience that plagues fantasy movies. Then it's rather cool later on when the nephew tries to shoot the king and repeatedly misses. Again nice detail that is usually not found in other movies. His final duel and events following the duel are nicely scripted too.

I also liked the finale for the same reason that it does not follow the cliched endings where main hero goes mano-a-mano against the main bad guy with no help. Or like dryad helped the hero to get into the enemy fortress, but herself did not get in and turned back.

<End spoilers>

Acting was decent to good. I liked Burt Reynolds as King, Brian White and Ron Selmour as Commander and General in King's army. Leelee Sobieski had a bit too little screen time for her subplot to shine. Jason Statham is probably not the best actor for the role of the Farmer, but he's competent enough.

Overall, IMHO, this is a nice and underappreciated fantasy movie.

R7/10.

"We the Borg"

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:21:51 GMT

In the end Asimov got it right: the only way for humanity to survive and prosper is to connect into a supermind of Gaia. Numerous SF&F books and movies, including "Star Trek" ridicule insectoid hive minds and show how human individualism and ingenuity win in adverse circumstances. But is that really the shiny future of humankind? Consider the following.

Human capacity for exterminating a large number of other humans on a personal whim is increasing every day. How do we prevent the future, where the humanity-annihilation could be done by anyone on the planet? We can't. The only way out is to change how humanity thinks and feels. Unfortunately, the mutual understanding, kindness and empathy is not progressing fast enough. How much of this would be solved if humans could directly perceive minds and feelings of others instead of blindly guessing them through limited audio visual cues? If humans get fitted with direct neural communication devices or get uploaded into a shared mindspace, these barriers would crumble. Then, why not go one step further and integrate the uploaded humans into the supermind?

Consider the other vital area: space exploration. It seems that space is much more inhospitable than Golden Era SF authors expected. Even the starry eyed magazines such as Wired and Scientific American acknowledge tremendous risks and dangers of human space exploration. At the same time, we are living in an age when the risk of human lives is less and less tolerated. The human losses that occurred during oceanic explorations of Columbus, Magellan and Cook would be totally unacceptable to current societies that ground Space Shuttle fleet after a single accident. Official evaluations seriously consider what it would take to make spaceships totally safe (escape capsules for every stage of flight, shields, etc.) for humans and come up with costs and weights that would make such ships unflyable. So the lowered risk tolerance together with ever increasing pursuit for short term benefits is leading humanity down the path of local minima - pardon algorithmic allegory - that cannot be escaped without a significant jolt out. It seems that Kurzweil's singularity could be such a jolt. It could also lead us to the Borg'like mind structure.

Here are the nice parts of the Borg: individuals are expendable for the greater good. Yet, individuals never die, since they always remain a part of the hive record and can be respawned as needed. Individuals always know and share everything else the hive mind knows and feels. It's like instant Google only better. :) So, why not?

"We the Borg... now we have to decide whether we are good or evil

"Young Sherlock Holmes"

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:25:39 GMT

"Young Sherlock Holmes" is one of the weaker Spielberg's movies. Though there is certain attractiveness to seeing the early years of our favorite heroes - and I liked "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" as much as any other teenager - it seems also difficult not to descend into the morass of teenage movie. "Young Sherlock" handles this part rather well, although I cringed a bit when a teenager Holmes proclaimed that "A game is afoot". More egregious defficiencies are rather lame and condescending narration and (slight spoilers) cheap looking and unbelievable Egyptian contrivancies. Because of them, part of the movie does look more like Indiana Jones than Sherlock Holmes. Overall, it still makes an OK teenage movie. For geeks among of us, look out for one of the first computer generated special effects from Pixar and ILM. I still would have expected more from Spielberg and Barry Levinson. R7/10.

10,000 B.C.

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:05:55 GMT

It appears that everyone likes to bash 10,000 B.C. The arrows come from all directions: historical inaccuracy, low quality CGI, presumably cliched script and acting. I disagree. The movie is really good if taken as a fantasy legend from a galaxy far far away. Sure, historically and geographically it does not make sense. But who cares? The story remains largely coherent and intact: the story of father who sacrifices himself and possibly his son's future by trying to find a new way of life for his tribe. A story of son, who is hampered by mockery and his own demons of low self confidence coupled with impetuousness. There are story arcs that breath fresh air into the old adventure cliches: (spoilers) the father who does not come back and does not reappear, the father's friend who becomes a surrogate father of the hero. Yes, there are drawbacks and plot holes that cannot be explained even by fantasy setting, but are they so important to dismiss the whole movie?
R8/10.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:58:27 GMT

I must admit I went to see "The Spiderwick Chronicles" with some apprehension. The trailer seemed somewhat childish and I have heard that the books were also aimed at the younger audiences. I have not read them myself, which might have added to the apprehension. Yet, since the movie obviously needed big screen and it was playing at IMAX, I decided to go there. And boy I was not disappointed. Maybe "The Spiderwick Chronicles" does not reach the heroism and self-sacrifice of "The Chronicles of Narnia" (R10/10). Maybe the world is not as complex as the one in "The Golden Compass". Maybe the series is not as well known as Harry Potter. But the movie still rocks. The characters are far from cliches - although Jared, the main hero, is dangerously close to being a brat who cried wolf too many times. The tempo, which is sometimes too slow in the introductory movies of the series, is fantastiscally maintained. The behavior is much more smart and rational than screenplay-idiotic: even though the hero is told that the Spiderwick Book is important, he tries to destroy it instead of blindly listening to the suggestions of others. Acting is again good, especially by Freddie Highmore, who gets to play both somewhat different twins. Finally, CGI has mostly expected effects, though at least couple are nice and possibly new. There are some expected moments and some "gotcha" ones, but overall it's a highly fun romp over the world of children, fairies and goblins. Just don't read The Book. ;) R8/10.

"The Jumper"

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:34:40 GMT

Zzzzip, whooosh, here we are, and we are not going to see "The Jumper". No, no, these are not the droids you are looking for. Better go and kill the grey stuff too! Just to make it clear, any similarity to "Bourne Identity" was lost in translation (get it?). Avoid, jump, juuuummpp, aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!

R2/10. No, I'm not kidding. Jump to the vaults of the Twentieth Century Fox and steal the DVD, but don't waste a rotten cent on this piece of ... whooosh.

Travels: MA, California, Thailand

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:28:16 GMT

Organizing photos and uploading them still takes more time than you would want. Finally I got the photos from last couple months onto Picasa.

Sometime in the summer we visited Hammond Castle in Gloucester, MA, the home of inventor John Hammond. Some more photos birds in our bird bath, Green Animals Topiary near Newport, RI and Walden pond.

In late October, I visited my mother in LA, driving up to Santa Barbara and down to Crystal Cathedral.

In December, I flew to Thailand to present at the Seventh International Symposium on Natural Language Processing. I stayed less than a week in Thailand, so I didn't really see all the beauty this country has to offer. The symposium was held in a resort near Pattaya. I visited Elephant Village, getting acquainted with resident "wildlife". I also went to tiger zoo, where I had opportunity to take care of more pets. Another interesting place was Sanctuary of Truth - a modern temple being built for the last 20 years using wood and based on ancient temple art and incorporating wide variety of Hindu, Buddhist and other beliefs. But how can the temple not have some resident deities?

OLPC business plan considered rotten

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:06:58 GMT

OLPC is making waves again now that they are finally shipping their oh-not-really-$100-laptop. Various people buy and even promote this product as a way to "donate" to developing countries. Unfortunately, the donation is rather lacking. To understand how everything works, let us look at OLPC business plan.

First of all, OLPC sells their laptops through governments, so it's not a free market. It's not as if the end consumers - children or parents or even schools - have a choice what to get. Some government bureaucrat decides it for them. Second, the way they sell it in the West with mandatory donation. It's guilt-forced sales that damage the image of the product. If OLPC is so great that it could stand on its own legs, why not sell it to anyone who wants one for its real price? Or even with profit markup? OLPC has great rhetorics that they can only sell laptops so cheap because they are selling them in millions. Of course, this is all just hot air. They ARE selling laptops in single units, they just put a 100% guilt tax on it.

So here we are: a potentially revolutionary product that instead of standing of its own legs in market has to be driven by government apparatchik decisions and charity/guilt. Is it really revolutionary? We may never know thanks to the rotten business plan. Is OLPC afraid that if they sold the product on the open market, it would bomb? I say: Free the XO from the OLPC-bozos! Long live free markets!

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:00:11 GMT

I was never a fan of Tim Burton and I will cross swords again with mindless Burton fanboys (and fangirls I guess :))). "Sweeney Todd" is by now #136 of the IMDB top 250. For what? The story of a wrongly imprisoned London barber coming back for revenge could be great. In fact, I love The Count of Monte-Cristo, which is in essence the same story. "Sweeney Todd", of course, is much darker balancing on the edge of insanity or even falling into it. And that could still make a great story or movie. Unfortunately there are two things that go horribly wrong. First, the movie cannot decide whether it's a comedy or a tragedy. Such a balancing act is always very tough and in my opinion "Sweeney Todd" fails miserably. Yes, some comic scenes are loughing-out-loud funny, yet they definitely move the viewers away from a very serious dark substance of the movie. Mrs. Lovett and Todd duet about who should they bake into pies is one of such places. There should be some dark psychological break of Todd falling into insanity after his first attempt to kill Judge Turpin is foiled by an accident. Instead he and Lovett just decide "what the heck, let's kill some poor sobs in London and make it into a song". That's by the way the second part of where the movie goes capitally off tracks. The musical is just weak. Take "Chicago". You may love it. You may hate it. But you still come out of it humming the songs and will know immediately when one plays on the radio. "Sweeney Todd" the musical is just bland. The songs are weak, the singing performances of Depp and Carter are nothing to write home about, the music is grandiose and unwieldy. And when the minor characters break into song, sometimes you just want to cover your ears. No performances are good, they all range from mediocre to bad. R4/10 just for the gruesome laughs and the pie I got at the movie screening. It was quite tasty, I just wonder what the filling was...

Another flight, another movie nite...

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:13:15 GMT

Like someone said, if you leave, you've got to return. Well, maybe it was me who said that. ;)

So the back 20 hours of flying time was spent mostly in comedy genre:

"Superbad" - teen oddball comedy. Most of it is spent on booze and girls. Which is not that bad. Throw in couple crazy cops into the picture and you've got a pretty funny movie with couple completely hilarious sequences. R6/10.

"Hot Rod" - odd flick with a heart. About a self proclaimed stuntman. Like people crashing while doing stunts? Your movie, then. R5/10.

"Borat" - Dzien dobry! I guess I am not a Borat kind of guy. Perhaps since I don't have a sister who is the number-four prostitute in Kazakhstan. Dziekuje. R2/10.

"Knocked up" - R2/10 enough said

"A Mighty Heart" - The story of kidnapping and execution of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Shot mostly like a documentary, it also works mostly as documentary. Since the story is known, there is not much suspence. Angelina Jolie is pretty good as Pearl's wife. For a much better movie of finding killers in hostile Muslim country watch "The Kingdom" (R8/10). R6/10.

"No reservations" - I had reservations (pun intended) about this movie, but it's actually not that bad. Watching Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart cook some tiramisu is yummy. Of course, I might have preferred Gordon Ramsay instead, he might have cooked that annoying teenage girl into some stew. Uhh, stew, yummy! :) R6/10.

Virtuality here we come!

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:02:04 GMT

As I was riding on the back of an elephant in Thailand and trying to survive each step that hit my butt like a sledgehammer, I realized that virtuality has a lot to offer. In virtuality, you don't need to go for 17 hours on a plane and 2 hours on a car with smelly co-passangers to ride an elephant. Even more, you don't need to feel like being hit with a baseball bat all over, after your ride an elephant. And virtuality now can provide almost everything that reality gives: Nature viewing? You can get much more breathtaking photos of animals on the web than what you will see in most of nature encounters. You can even get immersive views in virtual worlds. And you won't suffer mosquitos, ticks, snakes and other inconveniences of deep forest exploration. Sure, you still cannot get the divine panoramic views that you can see from Mauna Kea, but IMAX and IMAX Dome come close. Architecture? Check, both in photos and in 3D walkthroughs. Most virtual architecture is much better than the real one anyway. Songs? Check. Concerts? Check, most concert videos are much better than sitting in the bleachers and seeing matchstick sized performers. Same for sports events. Even if you want company, you can be in a concert in a Second Life with your buddies, cheering the artist whenever you want and having a private conversation at the same time.

You can even do things in virtuality that you cannot do in the real life. Wanna kill people? There are tons of video games. You can even kill real people in Player-vs-Player games. Wanna drive Formula One? Sure. Wanna fly a plane and crash it into buildings? Sure. Wanna take a space walk? No problem.

So what's lacking? Taste for one. You can't eat and drink in virtuality yet. You can't smell either, but this may be less important. Psychotropic sensations is another one: drugs (including alcohol ;)) are not available in virtuality yet. Finally, sex. None of that in virtuality unless you count plastic dolls to be virtual (gratuitous reference to Austin Powers here :))).

So there are some important things that virtuality does not offer. Yet. But as soon as it does, Virtuality Here We Come! :) Like someone said, "Reality is for people who cannot handle drugs". :)

"The Golden Compass"

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:32:31 GMT

Just to clarify, I saw this movie in a movie theater, not on the plane. :)

My impressions about the movie parallel my feelings about the book. I found the beginning of the movie somewhat slow and not involving. Then, once the heroes moved onto the Gyptian ship and the Arctic, the pace and the characters became much more interesting. Of course, how can panserbjorne be not interesting?! :)

I think that the movie does not flesh out the characters enough. Iorek Byrnison is much simpler and much less conflicted, his exile from bear society made much more trivial and cliched. Similarly, Gyptians, Farder Coram, and Serafina Pekkala also lose quite a bit of backstory. Maybe this is done to keep the movie within 2 hour limit (and budget?), but it's still sad.

I don't have a strong opinion about removal of direct references to Church in the movie. In my opinion, it does not matter much: church fundamentalists still won't like the movie, most people will still recognize what Magisterium represents and ardent atheist fans will be annoyed. More interesting question is how the second and third books will be filmed: they contain much more controversial moments. Most likely, the story will be changed, not sure how much though.

It is difficult for me to rate this movie. Impressions from the book are still in my mind, so I can't really separate the movie from the book and look at it with new eyes. I will give R7/10 rating. The movie is not much better or worse than the book, it is about where the book is.

More movies

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:55:37 GMT

I saw all these on a 17 hour plane trip, so sue me if I was not as impressed as I would be in the movie theater. :)

"The Darjeeling Limited" - pointless and pretty unwatchable. I expected it to be bad and it was. It is vastly overrated on IMDB. Symbolism? Who cares when the characters are idiotic and nothing happens. R2/10.

"The Last King of Scotland" - OK, so I don't really like stories about innocent idealistic idiots who are screwing African dictator's wives and then are surprised that they get almost killed. Forest Whitaker is good as Idi Amin, but the main character ruins the movie. R4/10.

"Casino Royale" - I did not see this one in the theaters since I thought that Craig looked much more like Russian killer than an English gentleman. But I decided to watch it on the plane. Well, the story is good. Unfortunately, Craig is mediocre. And some choices by the filmmakers are just inexplainable. So this is supposed to be the beginning of James Bond career - just after he got 007 designation. Somehow it is moved to current times instead of being in the sixties. Why? Are we going to see a new Bond timeline like he's born in 1970-1980's and enters the force in 1990-2000's? Weird. Then Craig looks like he's 40+ years old, while Bond at the beginning of his career would be in his twenties. Still the story is nice, so I will give it R6/10.

"Evening" - Dying delirious mother recounts a passionate love affair to her daughters. Did she make a mistake? I thought it was a nice movie, but the story was somehow incomplete. Yes, definitely mistakes were made and they cannot just be written off with a tagline "There's no such thing as a mistake. You get nervous, but you sing anyways". Worth seeing to meditate about what fools these mortals be. R7/10.

"Rescue Dawn" - Werner Herzog on American pilot's captivity and escape in Vietnam. The nice thing about this movie is its realism. There is no Rambo in it and the heroics are mixed with craziness, mistakes and fate. The movie shows how much the mental strength matters and what it can do even in dire circumstances. Still, I think I would have wanted more flesh out of the prison camp, different characters and their fates. Now they disappear too fast. But then, maybe that's what you want in a book, not in a movie. Read "King Rat" for the BEST prison camp book ever. R7/10

"Blood Diamond" - This could have been a very strong movie about African children soldiers. Instead, that's only a subtheme of the movie and not explored enough. The main theme is worked out pretty nicely, DiCaprio gives a solid performance as a cynical diamond smuggler. Only the end is rather pathetically romantic. TIA - "This is Africa" tagline is great though. R7/10.

Movie smorgasbord: "Pale Rider", "G.I. Jane", "Hot Fuzz", "Hogfather"

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:11:20 GMT

"Pale Rider" - classic western with story directly from "Shane" and others. Clint Eastwood is good and some details are nice, such as the main baddie not having 10 lives like a cat and not coming back to life. But some details are annoying too, like the whole teenage love interest subplot. 7/10.

"G.I. Jane" - still super controversial movie about whether women can make it into the Army/Navy elite forces. I liked it though. Viggo Mortensen plays the drill sergeant, I mean "master chief" channeled from "Starship Troopers" (the book, not the movie). 8/10.

"Hot Fuzz" - this movie for some reason has pretty high ratings on IMDB getting into the Top 250. Personally, I find these kind of parodies disgusting. They are not really funny, the character arc is lame, secondary characters are annoying, and the action feels artificially tagged on. Much better to go and see another "Scary Movie" or "A Fish Called Wanda" if we are talking about real comedies. 2/10.

"Hogfather" - I am not really a Terry Pratchet fan, but the movie was watchable. The Death was great. One big drawback was tons of secondary characters known only to Terry's fans. The shopkeeper? The guards? Professors from the Unseen University? Most of them did pretty much nothing for the movie, yet they were there with assumption that everyone will know their back stories and such. Terry does become deep at some points:

Death: ...take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

7/10.

"Beowulf"

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 04:07:25 GMT

"Beowulf" is an intriguiging movie. I watched it in IMAX 3D, where both the screen size and the 3D effects added to the list of things that can be loved and hated in the film. Yes, the animation is now very close to photorealism and animated human faces are sometimes indistinguishable from reality. The hair, the skin, the eyes - everything has gone a long way since the "Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within". On the other hand, the human and horse figures in movement still sometimes look like wooden puppets with a couple of movable joints. The same dichotomy applies to 3D: it's much better than when I last saw it. It is very impressive when used naturally for the purposes of the scene. It is still bad though: it is blurry, it is exhausting to the eyes, the non-3D periphery gets muted and lost (consider the first mead hall scene, where you can't see anything in the background when you get some 3D figures moving in the foreground). And worse of all, it is sometimes still used for cheap tricks. IMAX screen size is the only thing that is not debatable: bigger is always better. :)

But what about the plot? Ah, the plot. Last week I saw "Beowulf and Grendel" R6/10, which is another retelling of Beowulf legend. This one is also a retelling. They all have their twists that "enhance", "post-modern" or psychologize the legend. But do these twists make the legend better? Or are they there just so we have another permutation? This "Beowulf" is rather logical from our modern viewpoint the way "Beowulf and Grendel" might have been closer to the "historical" viewpoint. You may guess where the story is going pretty soon into the movie. The plot is solid and yet it leaves too many things out. The Unferth story line is never fleshed out. The relations between Beowulf and his wife are referred to passingly. The movie has to fit three epic battles into two hours so character development and details are left on the cutting room floor. And with 3D + animation distractions, the viewer does not really get time or urge to get into the skins of the heroes.

So at the end it remains a movie worth watching. In IMAX. In 3D. But the thing you are left pondering after the movie is not the fate of the Beowulf but rather when someone will animate Angelina's likeness without paying her and who will win the lawsuit. And will it be porn. :)

R7/10.

"Porco Rosso" and "Heibane Renmei"

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:44:19 GMT

Two not so hot anime movies.

Maybe I am just getting too much Miyazaki and anime in general this year, but "Kurenai no buta - Porco Rosso" seemed to be yet-another Miyazaki. Nothing special, nothing deep. "Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi - Spirited Away" R9/10 and "Howl's Moving Castle - Hauru no ugoku shiro" R10/10 seemed such a great movies. Unfortunately, it seems that even Miyazaki is repeating himself and watching him in almost reverse chronological order does not help. :( "Kiki's Delivery Service - Majo no takkyûbin" R5/10 seemed cute, as was "My Neighbor Totoro - Tonari no Totoro" R6/10. "Castle in the Sky - Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta" was more lively and complex R8/10. I never really liked "Princess Mononoke - Mononoke-hime" for its scattershot approach to too many issues (did anyone notice that Neil Gaiman wrote english adaptation for this movie? :)). R7/10. I'd say Porco hits the same spot R7/10 though for different reasons: somewhat simple plot and too cutesy approach.

And then we rented "Haibane Renmei"... Nice looking film and yet so drawn out... Watched 4 episodes and really could not get into the spirit. Then read the plot for the rest and decided not to continue. It seems that the highest ranked anime are all into relationships and psychological struggle: "who am I? what am I doing in this world? Why me? Who are my real friends and real enemies? What is the meaning of life?" And it's not that these questions are unimportant. They are very important and interesting. It's just that even with all the complexities and slow development of the anime series these questions are somehow hit on the viewer as sledgehammers. Every fricking minute of the movie. Oh well.

I guess I will take a break and come back to anime in couple months. Except that taking a break after "Evangelion - Shin seiki evangelion" R6/10 did not really help. :/

"Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell"

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:44:13 GMT

You read "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" and you wonder: how can the first book of a new author be so good? And how can it be so unconventional, going places that other SF&F writers have not gone to? I will admit that I have not read the recent Neal Stephenson's Baroque cycle though, so I cannot compare Strange with it. But other than that, I have not seen any attempts to write a Dickensean and Austen'esque fantasy novel. Susanna Clarke captures the mood and approach quite well. The drawback is that such novels are slow and boring and dull by design. Although I love movies based on Austen, I have never read through any of her novels. "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" was not that slow and boring, but still the action gets rolling very slowly and the pieces fall in place for a real page turner somewhere by the end of two-thirds of the book. It does not help that the cover seems to suggest the book being something like Harry Potter - a teacher magician and his pupil - or like "Star Wars" where teacher and the pupil part ways and become arch enemies. Neither of those associations can be farther from truth: Jonathan Strange meets Mr. Norrell as a grown-up and their relationship is very different from the magic schools we have become accustomed to. Even the fallout and the rivalry - this might be a spoiler, but then it's mentioned on the book cover - is very different with few moral white/black separations.

The strong parts of the book is its style and the overall plot. The weakness is some slowness and somewhat character development. We remain quite separated from the main heroes watching their lives and strugles as if on a stage of old theater. Not a bad way to pass time, but still somewhat lacking. 7/10.

"Music and lyrics"

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:34:15 GMT

"Music and lyrics" for me finally broke a long stream of almost-good romantic comedies. It has been a genre I loved, but after such great movies as "When Harry Met Sally" (R10/10), "Sleepless in Seattle" (R10/10), "You've Got Mail" (R10/10), "City of Angels" (R10/10) - OK, OK, I have loved Meg Ryan :) - there has been quite a dearth of romantic movies, even ones with Meg. Maybe Adam Sandler just doesn't do it for me ("Spanglish" R9/10 was great, but it was not really a romantic movie). ;) And here comes a comedy that has all the things I love: Pop (move on "The Wedding Singer" R9/10), intelligent witty dialogues, middle aged people with insecurities that do not feel like caricatures, and (almost) no cliched bad guys or supercontrived awkward scenes. The has-been pop star (Hugh Grant) needs to write a new song in few days and notices that his house-plant-sitter (Drew Barrymore) is better at writing lyrics than pros. So sure the music and lyrics match up even though there are things to overcome on the way. Hugh is superb, I could not believe that he actually sang the songs in the movie. Drew gives a good performance, though one might have wanted more out of her. Maybe the reason is that her character's story arc is not really fleshed out or finished except for the closing captions. Drew has shined in "Ever After" (R10/10) but has not had great roles since.

So while I was somewhat hesitant to rent "Music and Lyrics" for the fear of another ho-hum comedy, the result was great. R9/10.

"Across the Universe"

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:05:02 GMT

"Across the Universe" did not get very positive critic reviews. Despite acclaim of previous work of Julie Taymor, such as "Frida" (R7/10) and "Titus" (R7/10), this movie somehow did not touch critic's hearts. I disagree. "Across the Universe" is great for the Beatles music - although there are times when you wish the song was sung by John and Paul rather than Jude and Max. The cinematography is attractive with artsy feeling. Julie follows the footsteps of "Hair" (R8/10), sometimes perhaps too closely. We get somewhat similar script, except that a new arrival to United States scene is Jude from Liverpool instead of Claude from Oklahoma. But then Beatles sang about Jude and Liverpool rather than American midwest. We get the draft, we get student protests, we get a psychedelic scene with Dr. Robert (cameo by Bono). We also get some subplots different from "Hair", some of which are more fun, some less. And even more music by Beatles. While watching the movie, I did not believe that some of them were Beatles songs, but they were all credited to them in the closing credits. So what can I say? All you need is love... 9/10.

Singapore and Cambodia

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:18:42 GMT

I got a paper accepted at MIRW 2007 workshop collocated with MobileHCI conference, happening in Singapore, so we decided to use this opportunity not only to see Singapore, but also to visit Cambodia. Since, like Murray Head said "One town's very like another", we decided not to stay in the city-state of Singapore for long, just for the conference duration. As described in tourist guides, Singapore is clean and very green city. It is quite amazing what the city-state has built in short 42 years. On the other hand, considering Singapore is one of the biggest ports in a strategic location, it is a little bit less unexpected though still amazing. The state pushes high technology agenda and smart market-state-motivation based economy. If you are poor in Singapore, you still can get everything needed to sustain you (80% of Singaporeans live in state-subsidized housing!) and to learn including computers. But you also have to put in your share of money or effort (you can get subsidized computer for about US$200 or do community service and get it for free). The positive side of TANSTAAFL at work.

The nice points of Singapore was the food - really, really great Japanese Sun restaurant, fast-food Indian and classy Chinese Lei Garden restaurant at Chijmes. And the Night Safari where you see Zoo animals foraging after dark. Some other nice sights included Little India, Orchard Road shopping area, Raffles colonial hotel and just the nice city streets.

Moving to Cambodia we found the land of contrasts. Siem Reap - the tourist town near the world-known temples of Angkor - is growing by leaps and bounds, enriching the people in the area. Still you can see the pigs on motorbikes, cattle by the temples and wooden shacks serving as houses. Economic conditions are even worse once you travel away from Siem Reap and Angkor, though there is a sense of rebuilding of the country everywhere. Even though less than 30% of population have electricity, a lot have TVs ... powered by car-strength batteries that are weekly recharged by small time entrepeneurs.

Angkor temples were great, with our favorites being Ta Prohm, where "Tomb Raider" was filmed, and the recently de-mined ruins of Beng Mealea. Before leaving for the rest of the country, we also saw the floating villages and the reclining Buddha of Phnom Kulen.

Siem Reap was also great in touristy conveniences including great hotel, Khmer massage, and fantastic and cheap Khmer food in various restaurants. Once we left it, the service levels deteriorated. It is not surprising, since most of the tourists only see Angkor and Siem Reap. The rest of the country is not as attractive although still visited by hard-core travellers. Kratie is really attractive for its Irrawady fresh water dolphins. In the evening, one has to go to the Red Sun Falling cafe to catch the feeling of a god-forgotten expat bar at the end of the world. Food is delicious though :) (actually we bought those cooked spiders on the road to Phnom Penh).

We ended our travels in Phnom Penh. Though it is the capital and largest city of Cambodia, it feels less developed than Siem Reap. Even King's palace would need a bit of restoration. A place to visit for lunch or dinner is Foreign Corespondents' Club that makes you feel close to Rick's Cafe in Casablanca.

Last day we went to Toul Sleng Genocide museum - former Khmer Rouge prison - and Choeung Ek killing fields. Over 2 million Cambodian's were killed by Khmer Rouge, starting from intelligentsia and monks, finishing with random peasants, their own soldiers and the "traitorous" comrades. Nice learning from other Communist regimes...

Finally we made our offerings to Buddha at Wat Phnom, fed the resident elephant and released some birds. Will all the good karma, the travel home was easy. :)

P.S. 24 hour flights forward and back meant a lot of movies. Most of them were hohum (Shrek the Third 4/10, Ocean's Thirteen 6/10, The Hoax 5/10, Georgia Rule 6/10), but Blades of Glory are smashing (slashing? ;) 7/10, and Away from Her 8/10 is touching and creepy at the same time. Fracture was disturbing, but somewhat simplistic 7/10.

P.P.S. Picasa web for the win, Flickr to die. Free 1Gb+ storage. And they know how to reorder photos, which was driving me crazy with Flickr. What's so hard about drag and drop?