Musings from the Couch

The Shadowy Depths

2012-02-12T13:29:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Close, clouding

Atlantis Lost Again

Remember how underwater sonar maps put together by Google seemed to show the outline of a city under the ocean? And everyone started saying that Atlantis had been found? Well, turns out no.

Overlapping data sets, which created the pattern many thought to be Atlantis, commonly occur in the sonar method oceanographers use to map the ocean floor. Scientists bounce sonar (sound) waves off the bottom of the ocean to measure its topography.

The pattern supposedly resembling Atlantis was located off the coast of north Africa and covered more than 160 kilometres — much larger than the scope of any ancient city.
[...]

“The original version of Google Ocean was a newly developed prototype map that had high resolution but also contained thousands of blunders related to the original archived ship data,”

- smh.com.au/

Science can be such a tease, sometimes. Which is why it's always dangerous to let it near our legends. Let science focus on day to day stuff, and leave the legends to the dreamers.

Film Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Welcome back to the heady days of the cold war. John le Carre has written a series of novels concentrating on the British Intelligence services and how they battled the Russians. This story concerns a double agent at the very top of British Intelligence, who has been leaking information to the Russians for quite some time. Our hero is George Smiley, a veteran in the intelligence services. He's been forced into retirement due to an operation in Hungary that went horribly wrong, but has been brought back in order to figure out who is the spy.

Gary Oldman plays Smiley, heading a very strong cast in this very, very deliberate and careful cold war thriller. Set absolutely in the mid seventies, the film is very British in how it delivers. There are no car chases or gunfights, it's all about conversations and thoughtful pauses, and traveling about. If your idea of a spy film involves jerky cameras and constant gunfights you may be disappointed. As we proceed through the tale we understand more about George, his marriage, and how he relates to his Russian counterpart, a man he met once and tried to convert over. This is a particularly complicated film in that you have to keep track of the names and faces of the participants.

While the dreariness of London during the seventies is quite prevalent, the pieces to the puzzle keep you interested. There's like a boatload of nuance in this film, and pretty much everything ends up being important. And while the characters are all very British and reigned in, there's a feeling of barely-contained passion and action that seethes under this film - a particular scene where a drunk Smiley reenacts a conversation he had once with his great Russian rival, that is just brilliantly done. Proper cerebral spy films are hard to come by, and this one is top notch. Four chess pieces out of five.

- Peace

Dot the Eye

2012-02-05T10:18:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Dreary

Favoritism

You'll be unsurprised to know the injustices surrounding the U.S military in Iraq are still not being addressed. The latest is for a killing spree carried out by marines on Iraqi civilians who were near where a bomb had just exploded

BAGHDAD — Iraqis were outraged Tuesday to learn that the Marine considered the ringleader of a 2005 massacre that left 24 of their countrymen dead in 2005 was sentenced on Tuesday to a reduction in rank but avoided any jail time after pleading guilty the day before to a reduced charge.
[...]

The Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 31, pleaded guilty on Monday in a military court in California to dereliction of duty, telling the judge that he regretted ordering his men to “shoot first, ask questions later,” according to news agency reports.

Although the reduced charge carried a maximum sentence of three months in jail, which the military judge said he would have imposed, The Associated Press reported that as part of the plea deal, prosecutors had agreed that Sergeant Wuterich would receive no jail time. He had faced up to 152 years in prison if convicted on the charges of manslaughter and assault on which he stood accused.

- nytimes.com/

Wow, 152 years, guy pleads guilty and he doesn't serve a day in jail, and doesn't even get kicked out of the army. I think they were actually tougher on Lindsay Lohan, which shows you just how much they actually care about Iraq, or Iraqis.

Film Review: The Darkest Hour

Cheap alien invasion movies are usually disappointing in how they try to emulate the likes of Independence Day, but with bad camera work, blurry effects and wooden actors. However The Darkest Hour actually manages to deliver a nice alien invasion film that has a bit of depth and reality to it, while minimizing on the special effects. It no doubt helps that the film is set in Moscow, and the aliens are mostly invisible, but these points are used to the film's advantage as we are introduced to Sean and Ben, two American web entrepreneurs trying to sell their website idea to a Russian corporation. All is cut short however once the aliens start dropping in.

Our heroes team up with two American girls on vacation and together they all try to figure out how to get out of Moscow. Along the way they'll meet some new friends, discover what the Aliens want, help set up the resistance to them, figure out how to kill them, and get killed by them. The first step is discovering the Aliens are generating some kind of electrical power that lights up any light bulbs nearby. This gives our heroes a chance to figure out where they are. Combined with a chance discovery that the Aliens cannot see through glass, and they are on the way towards survival.

All the elements for an invasion survival story are present. The awkward introductions that are hurried along by menacing circumstances, the desperate initial run and hide. Then an evaluation, and even a trip to the mall to get more appropriate clothing, along with a joke about what the correct attire is for the end of the world. While the film doesn't delve too much into it's characters, it at least allows them to come across as reasonably real. The aliens themselves are simply monsters to be avoided, and then fought. And then finally the ending is more of a stoppage than a finish, leaving us wide open for a sequel. The upshot of all this is a real-feeling, but ultimately somewhat hollow experience, where the audience is more detached from what's happening than we should be. The actors do their best with what they have, but the movie just seems to sink out from beneath them. But a solid try nonetheless. Three streaks out of five.

- Peace out

Elementary

2012-01-29T13:24:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cloudy and cool

Fighting Oil with Oil

In a move designed essentially to try and get some leverage, the Iranian parliament is considering a bill that will penalise any European companies that are owed Oil by the Iranian Oil industry through having the agreements canceled. If you recall, about a week ago countries in the EU zone voted to stop importing any more oil from Iran by July to try and force the Iranians back to the negotiation table over their nuclear plans.

Iran's parliament is due to debate a bill on Sunday that would cut off oil supplies to the EU in a matter of days, in revenge for a decision last Monday by the 27 EU member states to stop importing crude from Iran as of July 1.
[...]

By turning the sanctions back on the EU, Iranian lawmakers hope to deny Europe the six-month window it had planned to give those countries most dependent on Iranian oil - including some of the most economically fragile - time to adapt.

The EU banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran's nuclear development programme.

- reuters.com/article/

This is continuing to get stupider and stupider. "We won't buy your oil". "Well we won't sell you our oil". “Oh yeah?" “Yes yeah.” “Oh yeah?" “Yes, yeah.” In the face of the looming massive European recession we’re now facing, forcing the oil prices up at gunpoint is almost tantamount to cutting your own throat. With oil. Sigh.

Film Review: Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows

Unlike the first outing of director Guy Ritchie's Holmes, a film that took it's time to explore the fragility of Sherlock's nature as well as his brilliance at detection, the second film is in more of a rush. It has already set up it's bad guy, Moriarty, in the first film, and has a lot for him and Holmes to do, so we are quickly off and away. An exciting train ride brings us to Paris, and a failed attempt to prevent a bombing, then we're off again to Germany to dabble ineffectively in a munitions factory, then finally to Switzerland to try and stop an assassination that could trigger a world war. It's exciting stuff, and Watson and Holmes seem quite at ease with each other and their rather rough and tumble life style. It's been a while since I read the books, but I seem to remember rather more deductions, and rather less fistfights, gunfights, and explosions, in a typical Holmes story.

Still, it's the twenty first century now, and we want our heroes to be at least as tough as they are cerebral. Hence the increased usage of howitzers, I suspect. But while there is less in the way of mystery solving, we are still treated to a fairly good puzzle of sorts as we untangle Moriarty's scheme. And while eventually that scheme ends up making Game of Shadows read very similar to the League of Extraordinary Gentleman (very, very similar when you'll recall that was also run by Moriarty), Holmes at least is more prepared to engage his opponent with wits as well as fists.

Featuring an enjoyable appearance by Stephen Fry as Holmes' brother, Game of Shadows is fun, fast paced and stylish while still holding on to that more gritty and careful manner ensuring you pay attention to the ins and outs of the plot as it unfolds. I must say I did enjoy how they worked out the finale, having Holmes and Moriarty confront each other over a chessboard while their respective plans are carried out in the other room was pretty good. So while we may have lost a bit of the measured and odd from the first film we have picked up more speed and style, while not making things too dumbed down, I hope. Three disguises out of Five.

- Peace out

Forever This Way

2012-01-21T09:39:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Warmingly warm.

Anniversary!

I believe there is a lot of blame in the Costa Concordia liner disaster to go around. Certainly blame for the captain if, as it seems so far, he veered his ship off course in order to do a drive by of a particular island where family of the crew worked, then abandoned ship while passengers were still trying to work out how to get off. But there's also blame to be placed elsewhere, concerning the ship itself. Four thousand people on that ship were faced with the Titanic scenario, 100 years after that liner sank. How to evacuate thousands of people from a sinking ship when there is a shortage of lifeboat capacity.

Veteran mariners say the Concordia wreck - particularly the problems the passengers encountered in launching lifeboats as the ship listed to one side - proves there are problems the industry, try though it might, still has not solved.

"The regulations rely on untrained and frightened passengers being able to deal with life rafts in the absence of trained crew members - including having to board them from the water," said John Dalby, a former oil tanker captain who now runs maritime security firm Marine Risk Management.

"The whole point of the Titanic regulations was to avoid what happened with her, and it has now happened again with Costa - that is, the difficulty, if not impossibility, of launching lifeboats from the 'high side,'" Dalby said, referring to the side of the boat tipped into the air.

In the wake of the Titanic disaster, maritime regulations make it mandatory for all ships to have a minimum of 125 percent lifeboat and life raft capacity, comprising 50 percent on each side of the ship plus an additional 25 percent available. According to the International Chamber of Shipping, they are designed to be ready for use within 5 minutes and to be filled as quickly as needed.

But all of that is for naught if the lifeboats cannot get into the water, or if the ship finds itself in distress in adverse conditions - late at night, in a storm or far from land, for example.

- reuters.com/article/

Titanic taught us that regarding the ship itself as it's own lifeboat was incorrect: that no matter the size, the ship had to allow for a full evacuation to the lifeboats. Surely there is an issue here with a ship that can carry over four thousand people? How can you expect four thousand people to be able to evacuate a ship in a couple of hours - a similar time line for both Titanic and the Concordia. Especially since the ship will likely be damaged and listing, and it's dark or possibly even in storm conditions. They've kept building these ships bigger and bigger, and I suspect have focused more on the "unsinkability" factor of the Titanic legend with hull design and computer assisted navigation systems and the like, rather than the "failed lifeboat evacuation" factor, wherein the nature of a crisis prevents the perfect conditions from being able to happen, and you cannot fill the lifeboats to their capacity.

Film Review: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Seems there are two kinds of people in the world, those who know all about Tintin and his adventures, and those who do not know him at all. I am firmly in the former camp, having eagerly read all his books from a young age. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have combined forces here to present an amalgam of Tintin adventures, roughly focusing on the Secret of the Unicorn, rendered through computer graphics to present a sort of living comic book. And the effect works fairly well, mostly avoiding the danger of the uncanny valley, where computer-designed faces look more creepy the more lifelike they appear, by sticking to how the characters looked in the comic books.

Of course the essence of a Tintin story is adventure and action, and Spielberg has taken this to heart, with a rip roaring adventure tale that simply doesn't let up. Ocean journeys, daring escapes, french foreign legion, hidden treasure, car chases, plane crashes, gunfights, and even a pirate battle is thrown into the pot. It's about as solid and true to the comic stories as you could hope, and I guess that's where I have an issue. Herge may have known how to write a good adventure, but he doesn't seem to have concerned himself too much with characters or relationships. Being very true to the source material, neither has Spielberg, and I guess that was fine when I was nine years old. But I've been around the block a few times since then, and frankly I'm looking for a little more in my blockbuster entertainment than just non stop action.

Call me nit-picky if you like, and I realise the source material has the same failings, but I feel that a movie that is all action sequence is really only half a movie. The digital effects are superb. The actors are top notch. The settings are brilliant and even the plot is pretty darn good. But where's the heart? Where's the actual risk? Yes the captain drinks too much and Tintin is trying to get him to cut down, but why? Other than the fact that these characters are famous, why should we really care who wins the race to find the treasure? It shouldn't get a pass just because it's old. Three head injuries out of five.

- Peace out

Should You Choose

2012-01-16T00:02:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Gusty

Film Review: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

Director Brad Bird steps into the big chair for the latest installment of the adventures of super spy Ethan Hunt. Having proved he has a flair for action movies with The Incredibles, Brad takes a similar stylish brush to Cruise's super hero franchise. More flair and a bit more humanity from the characters are a welcome influence on proceedings. Brad talked recently of how he wanted to have honest character reactions to the things that are happening, and that part really comes across well. However I feel that in this latest installment there's something that's gone missing. The plot revolves around a fanatical nuclear scientist who believes that what the human race needs is world war three, because in order to make humans stronger you have to first kill off most of the population. So he sets up the Impossible Mission team to take the blame for bombing the Kremlin, in order to steal Russian launch codes so he can fire a retaliatory missile at America.

Cruise and co, now disavowed and on the run from everybody, have to try to intercept the codes but, oddly and for no real reason worth 6 billion lives, are forced to essentially give them to the madman instead - and so the second part of the film involves chasing after the bad guy in order to try and stop him from launching a missile. As plots go it's about par for the course, but I have to say it really feels like a lot of the film is merely setup for various action sequences. I realise a lot of action movies are precisely that, but this one felt a lot more obvious about it. One of the things never addressed in these kinds of films is what happened to the romantic interest from the last film. However, this time around Michelle Monaghan's wife character from M:I 3 does actually get discussed.

And this is where the movie stumbles. Not explaining anything for the first half of the film, including why Ethan is stuck in a Russian prison, we're left to guess as to what must have happened between the films. Finally we're clued in and it looks as if the happy ending of MI:3 was not so happy after all, and Ethan Hunt is supposedly bitter and wanting vengeance: a theme of the movie as another character is also seeking vengeance. But then at the end we find out it was just a trick, which I think really upsets the whole film. For a start, it turns out that without any romantic interest at all a Mission Impossible film is actually kind of a lifeless animal, despite the stunts. And secondly, messing about with the characters like that ends up confusing the audience as to what anyone is fighting for. I think the nuts and bolts of the film are fine, but there's not really any heart in it, despite all the style. Two busted gadgets out of Five.

- Peace out

Boots Made For Stomping

2012-01-08T14:10:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Sunny

The Dog of War

After spending the last decade hip deep in the middle east, you would think America would be looking forward to some quality peace time, a chance perhaps to unwind, or at least reload, especially while staring down the barrel of a double-dip recession. However to think that would be to ignore the seemingly central tenant of the American way of life. First always be preparing for war. So it is that this week president Obama announced that while he may be cutting half a trillion dollars out of the defense budget, he still wants to keep tensions ramped up, and has decided to increase them in Asia.

The new defence strategic document titled 'Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defence' calls for the US military to strengthen its presence in Asia-Pacific and identifies China as a security threat in long term. The military review says US economic and security interests are "inextricably" connected with the area and the US military accordingly will "of necessity rebalance toward the Asia- Pacific region" , including strengthening Asian allies and investing in the strategic partnership with India, state-run China Daily reported. China's state media also accused US of being a "troublemaker" .

- timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/

I can't see how this is the time for re-posturing against yet another nation and ramping up yet more tensions. The only thing this really plays to is 2012: the US election year. As though the only way Obama can win back the presidency is to ensure everyone continues to remain on a war footing. We criticised this when it was George W Bush doing it, and I see no need to stop criticising it now.

Film Review: Puss in Boots

The famous cat from the Shrek franchise gets his own prequel/origin story. And it turns out to be a pretty nice origin story. An orphan raised in a small Spanish town, Puss befriended Humpty Dumpty - a shrewd character who's always had a dream to find the fabled magic beans and use them to get to the giant's castle. There he will find the famous goose who lays golden eggs. And while he doesn't say much about what happens after that, Humpty allows Puss to be his partner. Years pass in the orphanage with the two getting into and out of all sorts of trouble, until Puss inadvertently becomes a hero and receives his boots as a reward.

Now Humpty has a problem, because with Puss going straight he no longer has a partner in crime. So he sets Puss up to take part in a bank heist, which all goes wrong. Outraged, Puss leaves Humpty to be arrested and escapes town as a fugitive. Now, a long time later, they team up again since Humpty has finally found the magic beans, in order to get the golden eggs, in order to finally repay the debt. Oh, and Salma Hayak also is in there as a sassy cat-burglar, to make a third partner. Its actually a fairly complicated back story for what's a fairly well-plotted movie. It's essentially a western, with a rogue character looking for redemption in order to restore his name, while there's also a long-term debt and revenge to be worked out.

The animation is top notch, but while it is humorous I wouldn't call it a film that is constantly reeling off one joke after another. In fact given the western setting and the boots, it kind of has the feel of a one-gag film that is stretching that gag out as far as it possibly can. And every now and then you get a glimpse of the strain. But at least it doesn't pander too much to the audience, and it has a reasonably good ending. Two and a half boots out of five.

- Peace out

Oh, The Things I Have Seen

2012-01-01T15:26:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Not too damn bad

The Horribilis of Annus

Well another year has ended, of which we are supremely grateful. So many things went wrong this year it's actually difficult to summarise them all. So instead of bothering, let's have a look at the films of 2011 instead.

The Good.

Tangled. Brilliant, warm-hearted retelling of the old Disney standard that stands toe to toe with anything Pixar can do, but in Disney's own grand style.

The Fourth Kind. Shockingly terrifying portrayal of alien abductions in Alaska

The Tourist. Stylish and fun heist movie, with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, who are also stylish and fun.

Sucker Punch. Ultra stylish, exciting action fest with a solid core about insanity and escape.

World Invasion. Battle: Los Angeles. Solid war drama, only with aliens instead of nazis

The Adjustment Bureau. Sweet drama where true love has to conquer fate, as well as everything else.

Fair Game. Solid if exhausting drama about the CIA lies behind the Iraq War.

True Grit. Very realistic and strong western yarn.

The Okay.

Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides. Fun, but maybe Orlando and Keira were needed after all to give more of a balance to Jack?

Immortals. Stylish to a fault. That fault being a lack of character development or a cohesive plot.

In Time. Cracking good idea, but leading to a bit of a muddled Bonnie and Clyde theme, and a non-ending.

Hanna. Bizarre, haunting, odd, illogical.

Senna. Very good documentary, but not actually balanced at all, which is unfair.

Thor. Likeable, but so very bland.

X-Men First Class. Well executed prequel, but somehow lacking in actual characters to care about.

The Bad.

Drive. Stylish as hell. But ultimately pointless and barren.

The Three Musketeers. Yeah, who needs sword fighting heroics when we could just have a giant airship battle instead. A movie pointlessly upstaged by itself.

Cars 2. A plot about spies and racing could work, but when it's concerning a fool and a cipher, no one really cares.

Fast5. Hateful, vicious, stupid waste of time and money

The Green Hornet. Overbearing and stupid, despite having the right idea it just simply doesn't do enough with it.

Limitless. Awful, awful movie that ultimately endorses drug culture and the healing power of greed.

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. Oy. I swear, if Michael Bay had actually put any effort into this thing it could have destroyed society as we know it. As it stands, it is a monument to incoherence and chaos. A film that barrages the audience until they are so battered they will limp out of the theater thinking they were entertained, perhaps in the hope that then the torture will stop. A movie I am ashamed to share the planet with. A movie that, billions of years from now when it finally is received by any intelligent life on the other side of the universe, will condemn us as a species undeserving of any pity or consideration. So thanks, Bay, for cursing us once and (hopefully) for all with your relentless hackery.

Film Review: Immortals

Immortals refers to the Titans and the Olympians, who battled each other in the time before time. The Olympians won and imprisoned the Titans inside a mountain, where we see them at the start of this film. This story is actually about Theseus, a young peasant who is apparently destined for great things. To get to those, as in the way of most old legends, great suffering first must occur. Hence King Hyperion, played by Mickey Rourke, attacking village after village, building up his army in search of a magical bow he can use to release the Titans from their prison. His family were killed despite his prayers to the gods, so now he's out for revenge. Naturally Theseus's village is yet another one to be conquered, and Theseus is enslaved. He teams up with a thief, a monk and a prophet and together they escape and go off to try and find the bow first.

Now the Olympians could come down at any point and put a stop to this, but under the rule of Zeus they are not allowed to. Zeus has this new policy of not interfering with mortals, so it's up to Theseus and the gang. How do they do? Well, terribly actually. They essentially stumble over the bow with a tip off thanks to the prophet, then subsequently lose it to Hyperion five minutes later, then spend the rest of the film not being able to stop him and his army from attacking the fort/mountain where the Titans wait to be released. It all ends up in a series of massive fight sequences, where one army battles another, Hyperion knocks the stuffing out of Theseus, and the Olympians having to fight the released Titans.

I had to watch this film through 3D, which I found annoying and distracting, as per usual. The visual look of the film is stunning, as would be expected of director Tarsem Singh, but I can't help but think the script needed more work. The characters in it are paper thin, with the conflicts between them not really getting a chance to air. I wanted to know who the Titans were, and why they fought the Olympians. I wanted more for the thief, the monk and the prophet to do - they essentially just tag along the whole second part of the film. I wanted some kind of resolution between Hyperion and the Gods he so hated - after freeing the Titans he never gets to see what happens. The characters are all so disconnected it's dissatisfying. The only person who really stands out is Rourke as the evil tyrant. He can do menacing in his sleep, and he's given a character who's simply pure evil, and hence is pretty effective to watch. In contrast, the gods are played by kids in golden armour, and struggle a bit to show the full weight of the Olympic gods. While the film is enthusiastically violent and blood soaked, I don't really think it tries to be more than a spectacle. And while it is quite a spectacle, that's not enough. Three magic arrows out of five.

- Peace out

Price

2011-12-18T11:12:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Worn

Defeat.

Because that really is what it is. After about 9 years of chaos, the American military has handed over it's last base to the Iraqi forces ahead of the final stages of it's withdrawal before the end of the year. It leaves behind a country that is still shattered, still rocked by attacks, still in mourning. President Obama has gallantly tried to talk of how the troops were brave and true, serving and sacrificing for their country with honour, and that's fine. But the elephant in the room remains ignored. America invaded Iraq in 2003 based on lies, greed and arrogance. A different America leaves Iraq, chastened, bitter and perhaps a little stunned. And of course the Iraq left behind is much changed as well. Released from under a dictator, it is nonetheless a broken country that requires help and a lot of time to possibly rebuild.

The cost of war is more than numbers, of course. Losing a family member or a lifetime of disability are incalculable.

“The end of former Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime represents a considerable global good, and a nascent democratic Iraqi republic partnered with the United States could potentially yield benefits in the future,” Duss and Juul of the Center for American Progress write. “But when weighing those possible benefits against the costs of the Iraq intervention, there is simply no conceivable calculus by which Operation Iraqi Freedom can be judged to have been a successful or worthwhile policy.”

That’s a political and historical judgment that no doubt will be debated for years.

- www.csmonitor.com/

And so what happens now? With Iraq in such a state, hardly any military and no air force, it is vulnerable to it's neighbours. America may be less likely to jump headfirst into another middle eastern conflict in the near future. The balance of power around the world has been rocked. The instigators made their money and got their medals, there will be no real comeuppance for them. The only real hope we have is that it is a lesson learned, and learned hard.

Film Review: The Debt.

The Debt is one of those two-stories-in-one kind of movies, telling the tale of three mossad agents on a mission in East Germany in 1966 in order to capture and escort back to Israel a Nazi doctor, while in present day the same three agents try to deal with each other and the lingering aftermath of how that mission turned out. While unable to bring the criminal back home to justice, they do apparently kill him, so are lauded as heroes. But they're not heroes, in actual fact the doctor got away and they just made up a story about killing him to save face. Now all these years later a journalist has apparently found the same old Nazi in a hospital somewhere, and in order to keep the secret they've got to finish him off.

The film is ultimately about truth, and how lies make us prisoners. It's also a bit of a commentary on the Mossad's practice of abducting people after World War 2 that they believed were war criminals, although there's not much to be said on the subject. Switching back and forth between the two stories is a bit of a juggling act, but since both stories are interesting ones it works quite well. The casting is excellent, too, with the highlight being Helen Mirren as the older version of the female Mossad agent. Essentially caught between her two partners, she has to live with the choices they have made, and ultimately is the only one who can try to make it right. She's really good at conveying a strength and a regret at the same time.

The film is well made and quite authentic. It's a tribute to them all how well it comes across. I guess the main problem is somehow a lack of overall dramatic tension to the film. Everyone does or is doing what they need to do, in both time lines, and there isn't a separate element trying to stop them or catch them (other than the faceless police/security forces). As good as it is, I think it needed an extra element of opposition somehow to really sharpen the point. The ending is a bit abrupt as well, with lingering questions. So overall a pretty interesting film, but perhaps not the full knockout punch it could have been. Three and a half drips out of five.

- Peace out

Questions, questions

2011-12-10T08:22:00.004+12:00

Conditions: Tough

Counter-Counter Point

Now while I am no fan of Republican candidates Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann, I did note that both have come under heavy criticism for some comments they made about science, scientific shortcomings and schools recently.

Well maybe the science points to the fact that maybe science doesn't explain all these things. And if it does point to that, then why don't you pursue that? But you can't, because it's not science, but if science is pointing you there, how can you say it's not science? It's worth the debate.
[...]

I do believe that God created the earth and I believe that there are issues that need to be addressed -- the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the issue of irreducible complexity, the dearth of fossil record. Those are all very real issues that should be addressed in science classes.

Naturally this did not go down well with certain analysts, and both have come under fire for the idea that they are essentially trying to get creationism back into schools.

What's truly troubling is that both Santorum and Bachmann imply that evolution and religion are in conflict and that students should be exposed to religion in their science classes. Santorum, at least, should know better since he claims to be a devout Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church is comfortable with evolutionary theory and as I've pointed out in the past, Santorum's decision to ignore the teachings of his own church is an act of
unbridled hubris on his part.

- huffingtonpost.com/

While I think that separating church and state is a good idea, I also think that teachers and the schooling environment need to have an open mind about things. And science itself should be open to everything, since that is essentially what science is all about. So if there are problems, gaps or controversies in scientific fields, then why can't that be explored? Why does it have to be like a raw wound, as if we're not allowed to mention it in polite company? Why is it anti-science to wonder or explore possible problems with scientific methods or explanations? Has science become so sacred that it is not allowed to be questioned? That's kind of a slippery slope, isn't it? It's a big wondrous universe, and who really knows what's out there.

Film Review: Drive

Ryan Gosling stars in this gritty crime film about an L.A stunt driver by day who drives getaway cars for criminals by night. His is a lonely existence until he meets his cute next door neighbor and her son, and the three of them start to connect, bringing the driver out of his shell. Then the neighbors husband gets released out of prison, and everything goes to hell. That's as basic a film premise as you can get, and this is a stripped-out and hunkered down film. A film that revels in drawn out moments of silence and shared looks between it's characters. You know, in this day and age, and given the fact we live in a world where there are five Fast and Furious movies, this is a pretty bold direction to take. The focus is on the relationships and the characters, and the direction is very careful and considered - even the driving sequences are done mostly from the perspective of the driver.

Once out of prison, the husband gets dragged into one final job for some mobsters (played brilliantly by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman), and our driver decides to help out too. And everything goes about as wrong as you'd expect "one last job for some mobsters" would go, prompting our driver to go on a blood-soaked rampage in order to try and keep the wife and kid safe. It's the kind of film where you understand the hows and the whys, and the surprises aren't really all that surprising. It's really about the journey, about letting the director play you his music, and take you down his favourite roads for a bit.

I guess the problem is the massively ultra-violent ending, where people start getting killed, and blood pouring all over the place. I have to say I'm not a fan of ultra violence. It always seems like a bit of a crutch to make up for the director running out of story to tell. But here it seems like Drive really didn't have much more it could do anyway. The situation was screwed from the start, and ends up an inevitable mess. So while the opening scenes are fantastic, the film really starts rolling downhill at an alarming pace, albeit in a very pretty and self-assured manner. Two intersections out of Five.

- Peace out

Holding Back the Unholdable

2011-11-20T20:56:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Warm, stormy

The Unreasonable

An amusing article from the BBC explores the uncanny valley - that weird disconnect humans get when robots are almost but not quite human-looking. In it various propeller-heads explain how stupid it is to fear the upcoming robot apocalypse.

"The problem with tools - which is what robots are - is that we become dependent on them," says Wilson, whose new novel Robopocalypse is being made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg.

"That's scary, so we contemplate the disaster scenarios that could come from being over-dependent on tools.

"It's true - our tools could fail someday - but it doesn't mean they're malevolent or immoral or have an ethical bias."

Well that's kind of the point, isn't it. Robots don't feel pity, remorse or fear, which makes them ideally suited to taking out mankind once and for all, after we stupidly give them the tools to do it, of course. There will be nothing in them to stop it. There's no sense in being afraid of your toaster when all it can do is make toast. There's perfect sense in being afraid of your toaster once you've engineered it to be able to kill you, as well as make toast.

Theme parks can be scary places when robots get involved. The 1973 film Westworld depicts a fictional robotic tourist destination where, after a safety malfunction, the robots go on a killing spree.

In reality, statistics from the International Association of Amusement Park and Attractions show that there is a general trend towards increased safety as technology improves.

Similarly, automated public transport systems are believed to be a third more reliable than those in human control and robot-assisted surgery is more precise, with patients recovering quicker with fewer complications.

Removing humans from the process removes, by definition, human error.

No, No NO NO NO!!! Removing humans from the process does NOT remove human error. If anything, it simply elevates human error to a whole new level of potential chaos and destruction. Nothing can error as fast or as catastrophically as a computer can. We desperately need to understand this if we are going to have any chance at all.

But with robots becoming increasingly advanced, is there a line where an error could become a malicious attack?

"Robots are just a bunch of metal and silicon," says Prof Dautenhahn.

"They have no agenda - this is what's different from the movies. They have no hideous plan.

"You should not be scared of robots. If you are scared, then you are scared of the people building them."

Yes!! In fact, you should be afraid of both the robot (which can do anything) and the person who built it (who can make it do anything). Fear doesn't have to be rationed out like soup: there's enough to go around!

Its theory goes that "the small size, portability, and rapid potential for proliferation will make nano-built weaponry difficult to control and hard to keep out of the hands of terrorists".

And this is a view that is shared by at least one artificial intelligence expert.

"I'm more afraid of things that can be manipulated that I cannot see," says Prof Dautenhahn.

"With robots, it is something I can see so, if it malfunctions, you can unplug it and shut it down. If you have billions of nano-particles, there is no way you can do the same thing."

- news.bbc.co.uk/

..."you can unplug it and shut it down." This, ladies and gentleman, if nothing else, should be enough to send you out to your back yards to commence digging your World War 3 bunker. If our smartest minds on the front lines of the coming robot apocalypse are still thinking that a future robot would just be able to be unplugged, then we are doomed. Doomed!!

Film Review: In Time

There are two kinds of science fiction movies. The bad kind and the good kind. The bad kind usually involve robots punching each other, and terrible plots. In Time is one of the "good" kinds of science fiction films, using the genre to explore humanity. Director Andrew Niccol is the guy who did Gattaca, so that kind of tone and form is what you should be expecting. It tells the story of a world where everyone is genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. However they also will die at 26, unless they earn enough credits, or time, to keep living. Time has literally become the new money, with every person's wealth printed as a countdown clock on their left wrist. Time can be bought, sold, earned, traded and even stolen. All goods and services are now purchased from the time on your wrist. And when your time is up, so are you (to steal a phrase). In this world lives Will (Justin Timberlake), a working class schmoe, one of the millions who literally live day by day, earning just enough at his factory job to make it through the night. But his eyes are opened the night he meets a wealthy guy who has 105 years on his wrist, and has already lived a century, and tells Jim about how the rich are effectively immortal. They live carefully, as all immortals must, surrounded by bodyguards and sycophants, away from the rabble who fight for each second. But he's tired of living, so he gives his time to Will.

Now Will sees how unfair society is, and so he goes to the wealthy cities, to see for himself how the rich live. And in so doing breaks all the rules of society that have been so carefully constructed. The timekeepers are sort of like the IRS and the FBI rolled into one, and it's basically their job to keep the rich rich, and the poor poor. And if that isn't enough of a challenge for Will, he antagonsies one of the richest guys around by stealing off with his daughter. The two of them become a sort of bloodless Bonnie and Clyde, robbing various Timekeeper buildings to steal time that they then give away to the people. A class war begins to break out as people begin to have time on their hands, giving them a chance to think how unfair the system is, and whether it's time for a change.

Having set all this up, the movie starts to run out of steam. Our two heroes can't bring down the entire system on their own, eventually the authorities are going to catch up with them, but until then they can cause some chaos and mayhem to the established order. Of course there's a bigger lesson being preached, about how we're all so wealthy with so much time on our hands, the only true wealth that they can't take away from us. While that's all very noble, it does present the question of how such a society could even be set up in the first place: who would vote for such a thing? I guess that's not the point. In Time is a pretty well made film, that presents a pretty interesting idea. Justin Timberlake does a pretty good job with the character he's given, the problem is in the film struggling to deliver up a satisfying conclusion to the complicated scenario it has mapped out for itself. In the end all the momentum and intrigue kind of fizzles away. Just like real life, I suppose. Three and a half ticks out of Five.

- Peace out

Messing With The Script

2011-11-06T20:39:00.004+12:00

Conditions: Improving, finally.

The Tick of the Clock

Iran has been under a close microscope recently because they are building a nuclear power reactor, and everyone seems to think they're also building nuclear weapons as well. The U.N is getting ready to put out a report that will likely include more evidence of these activities. The concern is what will be made of it.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, when asked by Israeli television if "something was bringing us closer to a military option rather than a diplomatic one", he replied: "I believe so."

He continued: "I estimate that intelligence services of all these countries are looking at the ticking clock, warning leaders that there was not much time left.

"Iran is nearing atomic weapons and in the time left we must turn to the world's nations and demand [they] fulfil their promise... which is not merely passing sanctions. What needs to be done must be done and there is a long list of options."

Analysts say they believe Iran may still be several years away from having nuclear weapons.

- bbc.co.uk/news

And so yet again we're put into a ticking clock situation, with Iran seemingly developing nuclear weapons, and Israel preparing a military option to deal with it. And I still do not see how that could possibly be a smart thing to do. Launching a strike on Iran based essentially on an irrational fear of a country essentially commiting suicide, is nonsense. Will they come to their senses?

Film Review: The Three Musketeers.

I guess it's tough to appeal to today's teenagers when all you have to work with is a bunch of sword-wielding heroes whose job is to protect the king at all costs. Maybe because Dumas' book has been turned into a movie about 20 times by now, director Paul WS Anderson decided it needed something new. A new plot twist, maybe. Or a new setting. Perhaps some kind of new character could be fitted in? Or maybe, just maybe, you could just introduce giant armoured airships into the mix, and have them battle it out with each other in the finale.

Now, I'm no huge stickler for historical accuracy. However I am a big fan of historical sense. Historical sense allows the musketeers to use muskets, and swords, and wear odd clothes with frills, but to do all these with a more modern sensibility - so it always looks cool. Now, a giant bloody flying warship may look cool, but it is so far out of touch with the period of the film that it's just annoying. Also, since every castle, palace and barn back then was bristling with cannons, building giant airships seems stupid and pointless anyway. And when you start your movie out by having our heroes discover and then blow up a secret vault belonging to Leonardo Davinci, beneath the streets of Venice, then sympathy becomes a little strained right from the start. One wonders what they would do for an encore, blow up the city of Paris with a stealth bomber perhaps?

The actual story plays out as you'd expect. Heroes meet each other, are tasked to save the Kings honour, much running and fighting ensues. I have to say that despite the flippancy with which it conducts itself, the movie is at least trying to do something interesting. Milla Jovovich is brought in as a super spy/cat burgler, and conducts herself very well - as you'd expect. Also the sword fighting scenes are actually pretty good. But the point of all this is meant to be the partneship between the 3 musketeers and D'Artagnan. And the actors they hired are certainly up to the job, but unfortunately there ends up simply being not enough room, or time, to really develop the characters and the partnership. It's frustrating, I'm sure there's actually a good film hiding somewhere in amongst the annoying side characters and massive CGI airship battles, but it's too afraid to come out. Two swords out of five.

- Peace out

Daniel

2011-10-17T19:43:00.013+12:00

Conditions: ...

Tribute to Dan

Last week Dan Wheldon died in a horrific crash during the IRL season finale at Vegas. A genuinely nice guy, he had been a regular in the series but had not been able to secure a seat for this year despite winning the Indy 500 (for the second time). So the organisers cooked up an idea where he'd start the final race of the season from the back, and if he won he'd get five million dollars. This turned out to be a popular idea, so much so that about 34 cars turned up for the final race. This was not a good thing.

The track at Vegas is what they call a Mile and a Half oval. A steeply banked, vicious thing of pure speed. Because the track surface was so smooth and so wide, cars could get up nice and close to each other, all the better for maximizing the all-important draft. The problem is they do that at about 225 miles per hour. And as we have seen so many times before, when you put too many drivers in 225 mph race cars on a mile and a half racetrack, you get crashes.

And crashes are nothing new to the IRL. In fact, crashes are what made it famous. Back in the nineties when the Indycar series and the IRL series were slugging it out for ratings, it was the spectacular crashes coming from the IRL formula of tightly packed cars on fast ovals that gradually won the fickle audience away from the less spectacular (but better) Indycar series.

In time the IRL series grew, as did the crashes. And on many occasions people would say that this was stupid. The races on road courses, and even on street tracks, were dangerous, but reasonably so. The Indy 500 was mad as ever, but at least drivers spent weeks practicing for it. However the Mile and a Halfers, they always, always felt like roulette. And yet for the most part they kept getting away with it. The big ones they did have would usually result in everyone walking away, and if not the injured would heal up in time to be a heartwarming bit of filler in a later telecast.

It could only last so long. And so finally, finally, after so many years of pure undeserved luck, the simple madness of it all has been exposed. In front of a half-empty grandstand, with the usual lackluster telecast going out to a paltry number of viewers, on lap twelve a couple of cars at the front touched wheels at hyperspeed and in an instant, everything turned to chaos.

Of the thirty four cars rushing headlong through turn two, fifteen of them crashed, some tumbling through the air while exploding and smearing into the catch fencing, like a scene from a disaster film. The wrecks gradually slid to a halt amongst smoke and debris, and gradually most of the drivers emerged, taking off helmets and comparing notes and shaky grins with each other. A couple were hurt and were taken away to be seen to. But one car, or more accurately, one smoking wreck, remained surrounded by medical personnel, desperately trying to put the driver onto a stretcher, then to the waiting ambulance, then to the emergency helicopter, then to the local hospital.

Everyone prayed for Dan, everyone worried, everyone brooded. And the wait seemed endless. But finally, in an unsurprisingly half-assed and fumbling manner, it was announced that Dan Wheldon had died.

He was 33 years old, and had two kids.

The drivers decided to do a five lap low speed run as a tribute to Dan. Most of them were in tears. In an interview the championship winner Dario Franchitti asked himself what was it all for. A damn good question.

The point of racing is fun. It's gladiatorial and intense. Danger is an important element to it - but it's actually the danger of making a mistake, or getting beaten. Drivers do not think about actually crashing, or getting hurt or killed. There's no time for it, the laser focus is on the next corner, the next braking marker, the next pit stop, the next gear change. It's up to the organisers to think about crashes.

Putting 34 cars on that track was stupid. It was reckless and foolish. Crashes were always going to occur, and given that the cars are designed such that they cannot get away from each other, they are forced to race in packs, any crash that occurred was likely going to trigger a pileup. Sticking Dan in the back and goading him on with a 5 million dollar payday was the final garnish on the ticking time bomb.

Will anything happen? We've got several months to wait before the next season starts. And they've already organised a new car to be used next year, ironically one Dan helped develop, no doubt "safer", if there is such a thing on the Mile and a Halfers. But no, nothing will really happen. They'll have a funeral, go away for a while, and then come back ready to do it all again.

Dan was a great guy, a likable champion who had time for everyone. His loss is a huge loss to everyone, and a massive mark against the sport. The IRL is the most dangerous form of high level motor racing today, and it's long past time that it was fixed.

Film Review: Abduction.

Well, we all knew this day was coming. It was simply a matter of time, and no matter how much we may wail and gnash our teeth at the unfairness of it all, it is simply an inevitable fact of life, as relentless and unarguable as the setting of the sun, or the change of seasons. I thought we had more time before this process would start to happen, but there you go: Tempus Fugit, as they say. I speak, of course, of the inheriting of stereotypical action movies by the latest, youngest generation. Generation Tweet, or whatever they're calling themselves these days. As they grow and take over market share in the all-too-important movie demographic stakes, more and more product is targeted directly at them. This time it's the old Little Nikita standard, the one about the kid who finds out his parents aren't actually his parents, and suddenly the CIA and a whole bunch of bad guys want him dead, it's a classic.

This time around Nikita is named Nathan, and is played by Taylor Lautner, who to me looks about fourteen years old. The cast is filled out with the likes of Sigourney Weaver and Alfred Molina, but the heavy lifting, such as there is, is carried by Taylor and girl-next-door Lily Collins, who looks all of eleven. The film starts by introducing us to them and their high school friends, before the plot is finally, mercifully, kicked into gear when Taylor accidentally discovers his picture on a missing kids website. Just before we get a tearful explanation from "mom", bad guys show up and all hell breaks loose. Now at some point someone puts a bomb in the oven, which blows up the house allowing our two heroes to escape. At this point one of two things will happen. You will either think "wait a minute, that makes no sense. Why would either the bad guys, or the parents, put a bomb in the oven?" Or you will think "Heh, bomb in the oven. Cool." If your thought processes are to the latter, then congratulations, you will enjoy the rest of the film very much.

However for the rest of us, the bomb in the oven is just the first in a series of odd or just plain dumb choices, in what ends up being a fairly pedestrian and light weight series of encounters as our two birds figure out what everyone is after, and why. In the end it all comes down to absent-father issues, and coming of age. Good issues for the youngest generation, but a bit "after-school special" for me. While Taylor does his best, I suppose, frankly I was left underwhelmed. He can scowl at the camera better than anyone I've ever seen, but there's more to a character than how he scowls. If they are going to inherit our cherished standards then good luck to them, but recycled art needs a dash of re-imagination to survive. They are all very young, though, so there's time to improve. At least director John Singleton doesn't shake the camera around, we can be thankful for that. Two Punches out of Five.

- Peace out

These Muddled Times

2011-10-15T14:42:00.004+12:00

Conditions: Difficult.

The Split of a Hair

The War on Terror is heavily invested in using pilot-less drones, driven from bases in America and used to blow up people identified as being "terrorists" in various countries around the world. I believe it is a blunt and stupid weapon, incapable of nothing more than creating more outrage and resolve in America's enemies. Given that no proper identification of the victims are done prior to detonation, these things are really just fancy car bombs. Recently yet another victory was claimed when Anwar al-Awlaki and "some others" were claimed as kills by the latest drone strike, but it's curiously a victory that has struck some commentators as hollow.

But more died on that day than two suspected terrorists. Awlaki and Khan were both American citizens and, according to the 14th Amendment, are therefore to be afforded the “privileges” and “immunities of citizens of the United States.” Among those privileges or immunities:

No person shall be held to answer for a a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury … nor shall [any person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. (5th Amendment)
[...]

Citizenship cannot not be dismissed because of suspected crimes or words. In fact, it is citizenship in particular that keeps a person accountable to the rule of law. The 14th Amendment also states that being a citizen means being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

The idea that the government can authorize the revocation of someone’s rights because of words or suspected deeds, sets a frightening precedent — particularly when such a revocation leads to the assassination of the person without due process.

- antiwar.com/

I must say I find all this hand-wringing over Awlaki somewhat weird, akin to standing an a mountain of bones and complaining about the view. Exactly how many unknown people have been blown up by these drones over the last ten years simply because they were standing or sitting in the vicinity of someone who was thought to be a terrorist? Will we ever know? No, of course we won't. But blow up someone born in America and now the national conscious is pricked? Now we start worrying about due process? Now we're thinking about courts of law? This leaves yet more of a bad taste in my mouth.

Film Review: Hanna

Hanna is a very European take on a couple of themes we the audience are already familiar with. Firstly a young girl being taught by an assassin, secondly, a U.S government agent covering up an operation by any means necessary, and of course finally, a revenge flick. What's different about this movie is how decidedly odd it is. I'm not really sure what the plan was, how it was supposed to work, and whether it actually worked even partially in the end. Deep in the Arctic circle, Hanna is taught by her father (Eric Bana) the deadly arts until she is ready... to activate a homing beacon that will bring a squad of assassins who will put Hanna in an underground maximum security facility somewhere in North Africa, which she then escapes from while killing a lot of people, and sets off on foot for Berlin to meet up with her father, again. See, it just doesn't make any real sense.

Hanna is specially engineered on a genetic level, as part of a secret super soldier program, and that's why the Americans want her. Also the head agent (a very scary Cate Blanchett) is the one who killed her mother, long ago, while trying to shut down the project. The problem is that Hanna has spent her whole young life in the arctic, and knows nothing about the modern world other than what her father has told her. So she does rather well, considering. The director spends a long time showing Hanna enjoying, and talking to normal people. But the bad guys are never far behind. Considering how much preparation went into the "plan", it all goes wrong very quickly, and people start dying as Hanna enjoys her road trip.

While in the end there is an awkward comeuppance, once it's over we ponder things that the director did not show us: characters, plot explanations, inexplicable decisions, fight sequences, while thinking on the many moody shots of Hanna that he did show us. It is well shot, and well acted. But it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. A meal not quite cooked through, and not quite finished. While not quite the sum of it's parts, it is still an interesting take on an old standard. Two and a half dead cops out of five.

- Peace out

Out Of Control

2011-09-25T15:07:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold.

No Limits

A long, long time ago I posited on the speed of light, and whether it was an absolute limit or not. And I was laughed at, for being so naive. But if there is one thing I have learned, is that those who absolutely know something, are doomed to constant consternation. So when scientists at CERN announced that experiments they had been conducting show that Neutrinos were traveling faster than light, despite months of checking and double checking the results, I must say I felt a little bit better about the world.

The result could turn out to be an embarrassing miscalculation by scientists—or portend a leap into a science fiction territory where particles theoretically travel backward in time. While a confirmation of the finding wouldn't mean anything has changed about the universe, scientists' understanding of how it works would be thrown into disarray.

"It would be the biggest physics discovery in a century because we'd have to completely revise everything from subatomic physics to what we know about how the universe evolved," said Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada.

Like many physicists mulling the development, Dr. Turok was skeptical. He said neutrinos reaching the Earth from a supernova explosion have been observed to be traveling at the speed of light, which doesn't agree with the latest finding. Other scientists questioned the setup of the experiment and whether statistical errors might have affected the conclusion.

- online.wsj.com/

Well of course now the wider scientific community has to have a go at interpreting the results, and who knows someone might simply have calibrated the wotsit the wrong way. But, I hope not. I hope the impossible is actually possible, and I hope the laws carved into stone by our forefathers are capable of cracking.

Film Review: Senna.

Considering it's subject, I figured a documentary about Ayrton Senna would not get much interest, so imagine my pleasant surprise at finding a completely packed cinema ready for a heady 2 hour exploration of the life and times of the great Brazilian Formula One racing driver. The Senna Prost wars was essentially what got me hooked on the sport when I was but a lad, and this doco encompasses that as it tells Ayrton's story as he joins F1 in the mid eighties, up to his dramatic death in the mid nineties. Now, F1 fanatic that I am, I already know Ayrton's story so it's perhaps a bit unfair to review how filmmaker Asif Kapadia has tried to tell the tale. But I figure most of the audience should have some idea too, so game on. Asif has constructed a very incisive, raw, and brilliantly human portrayal of Ayrton, touching upon the important points of his life and career, and using the footage available to best effect to really tell this tragedy, for it is a tragedy that Ayrton died so young, so violently, and so publicly.

That being said, I did have a couple of problems with the film. First and foremost is the lack of a narrator. It was a brave, and no doubt complicated, choice to use the various sound bytes of people to "narrate" the documentary, and it does work reasonably well. But I feel it simply doesn't explain enough, nor really inform and prepare the audience for the ups and downs of the decade of F1 racing we wade through. We really needed someone to help construct what was going on and better keep a good consistent tone. In a similar vein, I felt some important points were either briefly mentioned, or missed completely. A better appreciation of the time line, and a better summary of the races not only making up the championships, but also defining the battles and skirmishes between Senna and his competitors, would have helped immensely.

That being said, some of the background stuff shown was brilliant in how it really showed Senna's spirit, both good side and bad, and showed how the sport was and is ultimately made up of and run by human beings, with all their flaws and differences acting as spice to the meal. Of course one of the most flawed characters was Senna himself, and yet despite how cutting this film is about Senna's competitors, it never really offers up even a mild criticism of it's subject. Knowing as I do the Real Story of what happened back then, I think that's pretty unfair to essentially twist things to the detriment of the likes of Prost, Balestre, and even Michael Schumacher, who don't really get a chance for rebuttal. I understand documentaries can become very very political in order to get made at all, but frankly at the end I almost felt compelled to inform the audience on what was left out, as well as praise what was put in. Still, an incisive and emotional telling of what is ultimately a tragic tale of triumph. Four Wheels out of Five.

- Peace out

The Cold Skies of Indifference

2011-09-11T14:51:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Crappy.

More Death From Above

Somebody put Bruce Willis on standby, because Nasa is warning that vast population centers across Europe and America are under threat from falling objects from space. However, this time the objects are actually man made

The $750 million (£468 million) Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) satellite, launched 20 years ago to study climate change, is set to breach the atmosphere within weeks.

In a new alert issued this week, officials warned pieces could land in densely populated areas on six continents including parts of Britain, Europe, North and South America and Asia.

Nasa claimed the risk to public safety from the “dead” satellite – which is orbiting just over 155 miles above the earth with an inclination of 57 degrees – was “extremely small”.

- telegraph.co.uk/science/

Since the satellite ran out of fuel in 2005, there's no way to alter the trajectory of the thing without firing a missile at it, which likely would only make the problem worse. Don't you love the cascading catastrophic event?

Film Review: Cowboys And Aliens

Another comic book movie, believe it or not, Cowboys and Aliens delivers exactly and only what is in the title. What starts out as a western about Daniel Craig waking up in the desert with amnesia and a thing on his wrist, and Harrison Ford as a big rancher figuring out where all his cattle have gone, turns into an alien invasion film when aliens start attacking a town in little attack craft that snatch people away. Naturally the town forms a posse and ride out in search of their kin. An uneasy alliance springs up between Craig and Ford, and with the help of Craig's wrist-gun-thing, and another shape shifting alien who wants to help, the posse form a plan to take out the alien ship and therefore stop these scouts from reporting back to their mother ship that Earth is open for business.

Jon Favreau has kind of a hit and miss approach to his films, and here he's delivered up another miss. See, films need more than a cool premise to actually work. Like Alien vs Predator, which already proved that just having Aliens in an action film isn't enough to make things interesting. It's always the characters that make a film work, but with Craig essentially doing a Cowboy Bond, all gun and no talk, and Harrison in full blown "Grump" mode, angry at each and every single thing that happens to the point where no one really talks to him, I can't really see the point in caring about any of this. And it's a shame because Harrison's character, a bitter general in the last war who hates conflict and all the waste of it, who is a cruel man, but mostly out of a deeply-hid kindness, actually seems pretty interesting. And, it's Harrison Ford for Indy's sake, just having him in a film is enough to make it watchable, the guy can do charisma in his sleep. But it's all too little, too late. We pull together a band of ruffians and a tribe of Indians, and attack the Alien ship.

Cue drawn out action sequence of men on horseback getting blown up by alien beam weapons, while Cowboy Bond and the woman sneak onto the ship, busy sucking gold out of the earth. It's difficult to really care when you have no idea what is going on. While the Aliens are impressive CG beasts, and the gun play is amusing, ultimately the film is a bit empty. Although it's perhaps foolish to look for some depth in a comic book movie called Cowboys and Aliens, we should expect at least some ideas, or at least some drama, in our spectacle. Is that too much to ask? Two wry grins out of Five.

- Peace out

Never Satisfied

2011-08-27T23:06:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Pretty Damn Good, Actually

On The Coming Robot Apocalypse

On watching the latest mess unfold in Tripoli, it occurs to me that real revolutions don't really have battles, or martyrs, or new flags. Real revolutions take place so slowly, and so completely, that you never really notice until it's too late. Take computers, for instance. In a few short decades they've gone from rare oddities to items that civilisation rely on to continue existing. And as we embrace our electronic "helpers", we are less and less likely to question exactly how they reshape our reality. A true revolution is never questioned.

At last month's TEDGlobal conference, algorithm expert Kevin Slavin delivered one of the tech show's most "sit up and take notice" speeches where he warned that the "maths that computers use to decide stuff" was infiltrating every aspect of our lives.

Among the examples he cited were a robo-cleaner that maps out the best way to do housework, and the online trading algorithms that are increasingly controlling Wall Street.

"We are writing these things that we can no longer read," warned Mr Slavin.

"We've rendered something illegible. And we've lost the sense of what's actually happening in this world we've made."

Right on, Kevin. It's not about not seeing the wood for the trees, it's becoming about not seeing the bark for the wood. The complexity of things only ever increases, and that's bad news for, you know, us puny humans who rely on infrastructures that are rapidly getting out of our control, simply because they're becoming harder to understand.

Algorithms may be cleverer than humans but they don't necessarily have our sense of perspective - a failing that became evident when Amazon's price-setting code went to war with itself earlier this year.

"The Making of a Fly" - a book about the molecular biology of a fly from egg to fully-fledged insect - may have been a riveting read but it almost certainly didn't deserve a price tag of $23.6m (£14.3m).

It hit that figure briefly on the site after the algorithms used by Amazon to set and update prices started outbidding each other.

It is a small taste of the chaos that can be caused when code gets smart enough to operate without human intervention, thinks Mr Slavin.

- bbc.co.uk/

Ponder this: Who really controls how we see the internet? Is it the directors and engineers of Google, or the overly-complex algorithms that those engineers created and refined over the last decade or so? Once you understand the nature of that question, you see the implications of what we will inevitably end up with: An automated world, where we sit uncomfortably squashed in as the superfluous organic component of a vast system of directives. What will we do?

Film Review: Captain America: The First Avenger.

Sigh. There's no denying that America's reputation has taken one hell of a battering over the last ten years. The attacks of 9/11 have seemed to brought out the worst, as well as occaisional glimpses of the best, in both the people and the leadership. The standing of America now is such that the idea of a virtuous Captain America, living up to everything America wants to be, bringing freedom and justice to all, while draped in the red white and blue, is frankly more than ludicrous, it is offensive. Frankly, I'm a little surprised they didn't laugh the pitch out of the office. Perhaps that's the main reason why the film is set in World War 2, back when America was still the good guy. It's really the only way this film could work.

Chris Evans plays Steve, a scrawny Brooklyn kid with a lot of moxie, who is accepted into America's Secret Super Soldier program and, soon after being turned into the prototypical super soldier, becomes the one and only when the genius scientist is killed by Nazis in an attempt to steal the formula. Relegated by a long-suffering Tommy Lee Jones to being essentially an animated recruitment poster, complete with patriotic outfit, the Captain nevertheless manages to get into combat in a daring raid to save his buddies, which brings him face to (a) face with this film's nemesis, Nazi General Hugo Weaving, who's trying to out-Hitler Hitler, with the monomaniacal plans, big speeches, and all around unpleasantness. He's using an old Norse myth to uncover a powerful energy device that he's naturally weaponised in order to drop massive bombs on various American cities. Can the Cap catch up to him in time to stop the evil plan? Well since the film starts off with a modern sequence where Arctic explorers find the frozen Cap in the crashed plane, not to mention the point that America wasn't bombed in WW2 by some crazed Nazi in a giant Stealth Bomber, it's fair to say that at no point in this movie are we ever in any kind of suspense

It's something of a pity that this film even exists. It can't be set in modern times because the audiences would puke from all the hypocriticalness. And yet setting it in the past makes it irrelevant and predictable. Much like the lead character, the film is pleasant enough, but there's no edge to it at all. No character, no menace, just a nice guy in an odd outfit, punching Nazis. Basically, like the recent Thor movie, what we have here is introductory filler, an entre, a set up for the oncoming Avengers movie which has the Cap as one of it's members. Could it really be worth all this preparation? They effectively could have encapsulated this whole film with a 5-minute intro. I don't know whether the Avengers will be any good or not, but a film that requires this many movie-length trailers to sufficiently setup the audience is either going to be ridiculous or inspired. Two Distressed Leather Jackets out of Five.

- Peace out

Signifying Nothing

2011-08-07T10:52:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Gloomy

The Sky Is Falling?

And so Standard and Poor have downgraded the U.S credit rating to AA, essentially as a result of all the stupid dithering Washington had been doing over preventing financial Armageddon.

A cornerstone of the global financial system was shaken Friday when officials at ratings firm Standard & Poor's said U.S. Treasury debt no longer deserved to be considered among the safest investments in the world.

S&P downgraded the U.S. government's AAA sovereign credit rating, an unprecedented action that could send shock waves through the global financial system. WSJ's Money & Investing Editor, Francesco Guerrera, reports. (Photo: Getty Images)

S&P removed for the first time the triple-A rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, saying the budget deal recently brokered in Washington didn't do enough to address the gloomy outlook for America's finances. It downgraded long-term U.S. debt to AA+, a score that ranks below more than a dozen governments', including Liechtenstein's, and on par with Belgium's and New Zealand's. S&P also put the new grade on "negative outlook," meaning the U.S. has little chance of regaining the top rating in the near term.

The unprecedented move came after several hours of high-stakes drama. It began in the morning, when word leaked that a downgrade was imminent and stocks tumbled. Around 1:30 p.m., S&P officials notified the Treasury Department that they planned to downgrade U.S. debt and presented the government with their findings. Treasury officials noticed a $2 trillion error in S&P's math that delayed an announcement for several hours. S&P officials decided to move ahead, and after 8 p.m. they made their downgrade official.

- online.wsj.com

See, it kind of blunts their authority a little bit when they make a 2 trillion dollar error in math. So while American politicians look like a bunch of idiots, the Standard and Poor people look a little bit stupid as well. Who will watch the watchers?

Film Review: Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Ordinarily when you see a bad movie you feel a bit pissed off, annoyed that all the effot and money was wasted, along with your time and money. However by the end of the third Transformers movie I was really just left feeling sad. Sad to see what these actors have been reduced to. Sad to see what these fine animators, and lighting technicians, and sound designers have been reduced to. And I guess sad of all to see director Michael Bay, stripped of his mystique, of all his success and assurance, visible now as just a hack, desperately pedaling the same old tired shit, serving up yet more high-gloss crap, long since shorn of any actual meaning or worth. The latest and hopefully last installment of the robot toy franchise delivers up the exact same story as the first film, and the exact same story as the second film: Robots plotting, Shia Lebouf facing personal troubles, robots fighting, and then shit getting blowed up. There's a half-assed attempt at a historical tie in by making the 1960's space race actually a secret mission to explore a crashed space ship. All in order to bring in the latest bad guy, ...something Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), who wants to take over the world.

Who bloody cares. It's an absolute wreck of a film, completely incoherent and so over-the-top it actually finds a new level of pathetic-ness. The actors, when not screaming their lines at each other, desperately run from one explosion to another while above them the various twirling bits of metal whir and crunch about, yet somehow continue to fail to impress the audience with any actual feeling of weight or presence. One particularly ridiculous sequence involves some kind of gigantic mechanized worm that mows it's way through a skyscraper our heroes have found refuge in. They fall into the building. They fall out of the building. They fall through the building. They even fall in the building. And yet, not one scratch! Are the human characters now made of metal as well?

This film is stupid. How come if the autobots are meant to be some giant secret, two of them are kept by Sam as pets? And their secret military base is in the middle of a city? And if the decepticons wanted to turn on this giant space bridge in order to bring Cybertron to earth, why didn't they just do that instead of resorting to tricking the autobots into reviving Spock Prime? What is the purpose of transporting the entire Cybertron planet to earth anyway? And if you're a 40 foot tall robot and two humans jump on your head, why don't you just crush them like bugs?

Perhaps the biggest thing I don't understand is how these films could have gotten worse over time? I mean, somehow the jokes are worse, the characters are even more shallow than they were when we started out, and the story, well, I mean what can you really say. Shouldn't these guys be getting better as they get more experience? To say this film insults your intelligence does not go far enough. This film insults everyone's intelligence. It insults the intelligence of our entire civilization. For God's sake, Bay introduces the new Hot Girl who's replaced Megan Fox by essentially sticking the camera up her ass. This has to be, please let it be, the height of teenage pandering. We deserve much better than this in a summer blockbuster film. We pay our money in the hope of being entertained in some way, but to sit there and be battered by gigantic relentless explosions, and then in between be battered by senseless and ridiculous performances, for two and a half hours, stretches the limits of human endurance. Zero whirs out of Five.

- Peace Out

Disappointing Times

2011-07-31T09:40:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Freezing

What The Hell Is Wrong With America?

For around 50 years the American government has been called to periodically raise their debt ceiling so that their government can continue to operate. A simple and stable solution to a complicated problem that requires complicated solutions in order to actually eliminate. Those solutions seemed to be working in the Clinton years, where suddenly the goal of paying off the deficit seemd to be on the horizon, only to be dashed by a financial crisis and the onset of President Bush the younger. And yet now, in this year, suddenly the motion of raising the debt ceiling has been stopped by the hard-core republicans, despite the economic catastrophe that is approaching if it is not raised.

Both sides say gridlock in Washington is nothing new. Passions were just as high, positions just as fixed in past struggles such as civil rights and desegregation in the 1950s. Indeed, some argue that limited government is a healthy by-product of legislative gridlock. Unlike a parliamentary structure, the US constitution created an elaborate system of checks and balances deliberately designed to cool tempers and force compromise.

Yet to many, reaching the edge of economic collapse reflects a much higher level of paralysis in the US capital that is fuelling talk of a decline in US might around the world. It is a point not lost on China, the biggest foreign holder of US Treasury paper. “The ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight,” Xinhua, Beijing’s official news service, observed this week.
[...]

“It’s just really poisonous – it’s polarised and chaotic – and it’s happening at the same time as America’s status as an economic leader is starting to be questioned,” says Jim Kessler, a former Democratic aide in Congress who is now vice-president for policy at Third Way, a think-tank. “I’ve never seen it like this before.”

Even if the US escapes default, significant damage may already have resulted from the stand-off. Credit rating agencies have indicated that they could downgrade the US. Stripping the world’s largest economy of its triple A badge would be seen as emblematic of a power humbled.

Could it be down to the new Tea-party republicans who are fresh on the scene after the most recent house and senate elections?

The emergence of the populist Tea Party movement as an intransigent force is often singled out as driving the malfunction, with last year’s midterm congressional elections shifting the Republicans so far to the right that any agreement with the Democrats becomes virtually impossible. Recent opinion polls show the vast majority of Americans believe Congress and the White House should be adopting a “balanced” approach. According to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, 68 per cent say politicians who share their views should be willing to make concessions on the debt ceiling; just 23 per cent say they should hold the line, even if it leads to default.

“I think the American people wanted compromise and a middle-of-the-road approach but over-corrected and hired people who heard the message of 2010 to be not just slow down, not just stop, but reverse direction,” says Chris Coons, a Democratic senator from Delaware.

- ft.com/cms/

So here we are, staring down the barrel yet again, and all because of an willingness to compromise sensibly. It really makes you despair in whether the politicians can actually do anything right. And as usual, the ones who are pushing us towards disaster are also the ones least likely to be badly affected by the disaster. Funny how that always seems to be the case.

Film Review: Cars 2

A lot of people say that Cars was Pixars worst, or perhaps least best, film. A fairly simplistic tale of down home Americana with a fish out of water, it played like an animated version of Doc Hollywood, but with cars instead of people. Cars 2, I feel, may well now inherit the title of "least worse" Pixar movie. It is another fish out of water film, but this time trading in Doc Hollywood for ...Austin Powers?

The focus this time is on Mater the tow truck, invited along by Lightning McQueen to the World Grand Prix, a championship set up to promote the goodness of Organic fuel. Mater is treated to a series of culture shocks as he goes to Japan, France, and England. But under all this is a Legion of Evil who are plotting to sabotage the whole thing by blowing up the competitors. New character Finn McMissile, voiced by Michael Caine, is a British secret agent trying to uncover the evil plot. He believes Mater is an American secret agent and drags him in to figure out what's going on.

So the plot is basically a little bit of Grand Prix, and a bit more of James Bond. Which is an interesting idea I guess, but frankly I found the racing sequences much much more interesting than watching Finn and Mater try to uncover the secret plan and figure out who the bad guy is. But most worrying is that, unlike practically every other Pixar movie, at the end of this one the protagonist hasn't really changed. Mater's still an idiot, and hasn't changed or learned an important lesson, or really learned anything. This is quite the departure for Pixar, and I'm not sure if it's lazy writing, or just complacency in knowing that whatever they did with this film, the masses would flock to see it. I certainly hope it's just an anomaly, a random bump in the road, and that Pixar will remain committed to remarkably nuanced and detailed movies, and not simplistic good-looking crap like this. Two backfires out of Five.

- Peace out

Weird Science

2011-07-24T11:19:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Snow-ish

Eyes Wide Shut

Finally the shady world of human-animal experimentation is calling for some regulation on it's practices

FRANKENSTEIN animal experiments must be controlled more tightly to stop scientists racing ahead with research that creates monsters, experts warned.

They called yesterday for a watchdog to monitor implants in animals and urged it to kill off mixed animal/human embryos at 14 days. The Academy of Medical Sciences said the public broadly supported animal research but was opposed to anything that might make them more like us. It follows news that scientists are close to replacing whole brains in monkeys with human cells.

The Academy said: “There is a Frankenstein fear that research which creates ‘humanised’ animals is going to generate ‘monsters’.”

- mirror.co.uk/news/

I for one welcome this opportunity for the Animal-Human hybrid creators of the future to open up their work to the greater scientific community, not only for the betterment of their practices, but also for the chance for their work to receive the true recognition that it deserves!

Film Review: X-Men First Class

Prequels are always a tricky business, as characters that we already know about are "put in peril", but of course are not actually in peril as they have to show up in the next film. Furthermore, we already know who the characters are and what arcs they are going to end up on, so a lot of the potential surprise of discovery is lost. X-Men First Class is not really an exception to this, putting forward the story of what happened to Magneto to make him the genocidal maniac he turns out to be, and how Professor X became Professor X, and why the two of them are friends. It's the 60's, and the U.S government is standing toe to toe against the Russians over American nuclear missiles in Turkey, and Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba. Turns out the whole standoff was engineered by Kevin Bacon, who I didn't even know was in the film, and is the bad guy. Kevin wants to provoke a nuclear World War 3 because then he and his fellow mutants will rule the world, and he's got a nifty Dr-Evil style submarine to charge around in to try and make it happen.

Professor X and Magneto (not yet their actual nicknames) team up for the CIA in order to recruit a bunch of mutants to go against him, but of course Magneto has his own plans and ideas, since Kevin was also the guy who tormented him back in the Nazi camp so many prequels ago. And it turns out Mystique and X knew each other well from a very young age, she spending her youth pretending to look normal before Magneto eventually persuades her that she should not hide who she is. Unless she's actively, you know, being someone else.

Anyway, while the film is quite clever, managing to ramp up the tension as the Cuban Missile crisis comes into full swing with the X-Men right in the middle of it all, the problem with the film is that it doesn't have a lot of depth to it. It's so busy setting up characters and establishing the plot that the actual character development that makes a film work is greatly compressed. Mystique's character especially suffers from this, as she seems to make some big decisions seemingly out of nowhere. Anyway, James McAvoy(X) and Michael Fassbender (Magneto) are really spot-on in their portrayals of the younger versions of these characters, there's something about putting English actors into American action movies that just works. Director Matthew Vaughn has managed to put this film together quite well, delivering a good spectacle that actually has a beating heart at it's center. It's actually a shame that this is a prequel, and that they didn't start with this one. Would have worked even better. Three and a half coins out of Five.

- Peace out

Pieces Of Eight

2011-07-17T10:01:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Shiny

The Mob.

For years now it has been known that a certain newspaper had hacked into peoples voicemail accounts in order to get the scoop. And yet it's only now that all hell has broken loose. A famous newspaper has been shut down, various executives are resigning in disgrace, and Ruper Murdoch, the great news tycoon himself, is canceling huge take over deals one minute, and grovelling for forgiveness the next. What is going on?

Hinton's resignation came just hours after Rebekah Brooks, a former News of the World editor who currently oversees News Corporation's British newspapers, also stepped down.

Murdoch shut down News of the World last week. The firestorm over the scandal also has forced Murdoch to abandon efforts to push through a multi-billion-dollar bid for British Sky Broadcasting, a satellite television company.

As News Corporation announced the public apology, the 80-year-old Murdoch visited at a London hotel with the parents of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old British murder victim whose phone was hacked by News of the World. A lawyer for the family described Murdoch as "very humbled" and "very shaken" as he offered his apology.

Brooks has agreed to testify before the British parliament next week about the phone-hacking and police bribery scandal. Murdoch and his son, James, who heads News Corporation's international operations, will also testify before parliament next week, after initially refusing to do so.

In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun a probe into whether News Corporation employees tried to hack into the phones of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and their families, or tried to bribe police for information.

- voanews.com

I have to say, I don't really get all the hysteria that's been sweeping this along. I mean, yeah it looks like they did something illegal, and I'm not cool with that, but is it actually worth this much drama? This kind of witch hunt? Did someone get killed out of their phones being hacked? I suspect what we're really seeing is the mob turning against the rich and powerful. When it was just actors and politicians getting hacked, no one cares. Screw them, they're rich. But hack the phone of a little girl, or a victim of some monstrous crime, and suddenly it's Heads Will Roll. It's depressing. It's essentially mob rule, where the law is only really important if the victim is photogenic enough. That ain't justice.

Film Review: Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides

Who'd have thought a amusement park ride could have been stretched to a multi-billion dollar 4-film franchise? Well clearly Disney did, as did Jerry Bruckheimer, running this thing for all it's worth. The previous director proving too busy, they picked Gerry Marshal who has delivered up a simpler and Jack-oriented movie for the fourth outing. And thank goodness, too, because the tangle the last two movies got into were quite annoying. This time Captain Sparrow is tasked with finding the Fountain of Youth, on behalf of Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter played by Penelope Cruz. And since she has a thing with Captain Sparrow the scene is set for hi-jinks galore. Add in Geoffrey Rush again who is also after the Fountain on behalf of the British admiralty, and the Spanish armada, and you've got a fast paced film filled with fights and chases, with Jack weaving about in the middle somewhere.

Playing Jack again seems to suit Johnny Depp well, it's a fun character who has a well-hidden depth and a basic method to his madness. I'm not really sure if Sparrow himself knows exactly what is going to happen next, or is winging it along with everyone else, but I think the key to these films is to not concentrate too much on the specifics. Always a good idea when there are mermaids about. Ian McShane as Blackbeard is essentially on one single note. He wants the fountain because someone is going to kill him, and he'll kill anyone who gets in his way. That's fairly simple to understand, at least.

The music is pretty solid, the direction is pretty solid, the fight sequences are well done, but perhaps without the flair of earlier films, and the film pushes on to it's conclusion. It's not exactly fantastic, the newness rubbed off a long time ago, but it is at least an improvement over the labyrinth of the last two outings. Three and a half bottles of rum out of five.

- Peace out

Following The Pattern

2011-06-19T13:05:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Distinctly Meh

Study Reveals Humans Still Human

A few weeks ago a study by the World Health Organisation was released that seemed to show a link between cell phone usage and cancer. Now in the light of that, somewhat obvious, news, you may wonder if people might be thinking of cutting down on cellphone exposure.

NEW YORK, June 18 (UPI) -- Most U.S. consumers say they are not changing cellphone use after a study said extensive use may increase cancer risk, a survey indicates.

The survey, conducted by TNS, indicates that more than 80 percent of U.S. consumers report being aware of the recent news released by the World Health Organization that said extensive long-term use of cellphones may have a possible cancer risk.
[...]

"The high degree of awareness about the recent news and relatively low rates of change in behavior really demonstrate the ubiquity of mobile usage and its importance in daily life," Charles White, senior vice president at TNS, says in a statement.

"Given the direct correlation between radiation emitted by cell phones and cancer rates remains unclear, I think the risks would need to be much more pronounced to see significant impact on usage."

- upi.com/Health_News/

And given how we're still smoking cigarettes and guzzling alcohol despite the studies demonstrating how bad they are, I'd imagine that any actual reaction to this study is going to take a lot more time and effort to re-educate the masses. In the meantime I look forward to adverts where cellphone companies talk about how much more safer their phones are than their competitions. A low-tar cellphone that lets you celebrate life!!

Film Review: Source Code

For a movie that is about continually going back in time, there's a fitting amount of Deja Vu about this film. First of all is of course the previous Tony Scott movie Deja Vu, with Denzel Washington using a secret government-run time machine to go back in time to stop a terrorist. Then there's director Duncan Jones' last movie, Moon, where a guy is trapped out all alone, away from the world, and has to figure out what's going on for himself. Then there's Michele Monaghan, who yet again pops up in a role that is essentially the damsel in distress. She seems like a pretty good actress, why does she keep getting stuck in the same role over and over?

Anyway, Source Code sees Jake Gyllenhaal stuck inside a capsule, with a fuzzy memory and some military people talking to him over a monitor. Then bam, he wakes up on a train, in another person's body. Then 8 minutes later the train blows up. Then back to the capsule. Then back to the train. Eventually someone tells him that they're doing some tricky quantum shit to insert him into a past event to try and find the bomber. Quantum, again. Always with the quantum, Hollywood. But we're not really meant to worry too much about the science, hence there not really being a lot of science to worry about. Instead this is about Jake reliving the explosion again and again and gradually figuring out who the bomber is. Inbetween all that he's trying to figure out where he is, and what's happened to himself.

Everyone loves a happy ending, and the great thing about time travel stories is that there's huge scope to allow the director to pull one from out of nowhere. And so I don't begrudge the movie for wrapping everything up in a nice bow, and allowing the happily ever after to happen. The mystery gets solved, but it's almost like an afterthought, becoming background to Jake coming to terms with himself and finding a way out of his predicament. And much like Moon, we don't really know if the way out is going to work or not, but it's really about hope staying alive. I don't know, it's well done and satisfying, but it for some reason Source Code doesn't quite have the punch that Tony Scott and Denzel put into Deja Vu. Three cellphones out of five.

- Peace out

Coming Back Around

2011-05-29T13:49:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Cold and Sunny

The Rising Tide

It seems to me more richly ironic that mankind's ultimate downfall would come at his own hand, rather than some kind of massive natural disaster. Mutating viruses that get out of control. Pollution levels spiking and poisoning the world's water supplies. Nuclear warfare, that kind of thing. So when the Future of Humanity Institute recently conducted a survey of their members about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence playing a part in the downfall of man, you might think they'd be skeptical. I mean, even the beginnings of A.I have not really been figured out yet, while we have several arsenals of Nukes just begging to be fired off. Any yet...

The most likely outcome is extremely bad. Eyeing it up it looks like a good outcome of any degree (extremely good + good) is less likely than a bad outcome of any degree (extremely bad + bad). Given that these experts think that the result is most likely very bad, why do we hear such little discussion about how to stop intelligent machines from being invented? In response to a question about what kind of organization was most likely to develop machine intelligence, the most probable was the military. This means we have something of a lever with which to try and slow them down. Should DARPA be shut down?

- modeledbehavior.com/

Well we all know how difficult it is to try and shut the military down when they have their eyes on a new "toy". The survey also asked what the time frame was, and basically it looks like we've got about 40 years until human-level machine intelligence will emerge. So be warned, the eggheads have spoken, and time is apparently running out.

Film Review: HoodWinked Too

I don't care what anyone says, if a film is good then it deserves to be seen regardless of what age group it aims at. I do care if a movie theater is filled with kids, who tend to be a tad more disruptive than your normal late night movie-watching audience, but at least kids aren't ashamed to laugh out loud at the jokes. So I'm not ashamed to say I saw the first Hoodwinked movie, and went to see the sequel as well. And it just goes to show how difficult it is to capture lightening in a bottle twice. The first Hoodwinked film was a delightfully fun re imagining of the Red Riding Hood story, whereby several wacky characters in an enchanted forest told their differing versions of the same event while figuring out who the mastermind behind a heinous crime was. This film works in a more simple fashion, whereby the characters are sent to San Francisco to stop a witch from creating magical cupcakes for evil masterminds that will give them super powers. Red and the Wolf are now partners, but the focus is on them struggling to work together and getting in each others way, each preferring to work alone. The moral of the story is how we all need help, and it's okay to ask for it.

Despite more screen time for Twitchy the beaver, and even a bit more for the crazy folk-singing goat, the film isn't as funny or wacky as the first film. It spends a lot more time with the bad guys and their constant screaming of how evil they are and what they're going to do. Red and Wolf proceed around the city asking questions, and then there's a final confrontation on a city street. I miss the enchanted forest setting, which felt a bit more special than San Francisco, despite how well the city was drawn.

Everyone's trying their best, but that crazy spark the first film had has been diluted down a bit in the sequel. There are some good laughs to be had, but with no real surprises to deliver, the film comes up a little flat. Two and a half cupcakes out of five.

- Peace out

And I Feel Fine?

2011-05-21T16:41:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Not too bad, actually.

The End of the World, Again

It's always nice to have something to look forward to for the weekend, and this particular weekend we have a special treat indeed. It's the end of the world, again. This time on the advice of bible mathematician Harold Camping, who has calculated out that the rapture will take place today, around 6pm (18:00 hours.). That's 6pm, everywhere!

The 89-year-old doomsday prophet, a former engineer who perhaps inevitably comes from California, has prompted a tide of expectation, elation and derision after persuading listeners to his Family Radio Worldwide across the US and as far away as the Philippines to sell up everything and prepare for the beginning of the end of the world with the second coming of Jesus.

If all goes according to plan, those who have been "saved" by Jesus will rise into the air in the Rapture and look down as God smites billions of nonbelievers with a great earthquake rolling from city to city across the planet, and a bit of fire to boot.

"Everyone will be weeping and wailing because they'll know in a few hours it'll come to their city," Camping told the TYT Now online news show. "It's going to be a horror story of tremendous proportion."

Judgment day will begin at 6pm wherever you are. The mayhem will move west over the planet, wiping out cities, towns and villages.

In the US, some believers have given up their jobs and donated money they think they will no longer need to pay for more than 2,000 billboards across the country proclaiming "Judgment Day: May 21, 2011 – Cry mightily unto God. THE BIBLE GUARANTEES IT!"

- guardian.co.uk/world/

Oh dear. See one of the problems with the rapture is that it's not really in the bible. And the second problem is just how batshit insane it sounds when you try to communicate it to others. You really need to already have a touch of the crazy to take it on board. However that hurdlke has not prevented a very large portion of people preparing themselves for the big event, selling their stuff and saying goodbye. And that has allowed another large amount of people to try to make some money off the true believers, by for instance offering to take care of their pets once the rapture comes (no pets in heaven, see. I guess if the angels want someone to go fetch, they'll draw straws.)

So what can we learn from this? Well, it seems most people like the idea of the rapture, presumably because they are tired and hate their jobs and want a really long vacation. One sympathizes. The great thing about making fun of these kinds of things is that if it is actually the apocalypse no one will care about who was being snitty beforehand.

But inevitably I feel confident that come 7 o'clock there's going to be a bit of a down slide for a certain population who perhaps gambled a little too much on the predictions of one man. It's one thing to wonder about the end of the world, but quite another to make preparations for it.

Film Review: Thor

What a boost this whole Avengers thing has been to the comic book movie genre. I mean, without it various films of late would have had to come up with extra scenes and characters of their own, rather than just relying on this overall Government department of superheros to step in and help out with plot points. Thor, one of the lesser-known comic book properties, puts forward the idea that all the old Scandinavian legends were actually real, and that back in the day humans were subservient to the various Nordic gods. But with the war against the ice planet won there was no longer need to mess about on Earth, so they've left us alone. Odin, played by a rejuvenated Anthony Hopkins, is preparing to pass his crown on to his son Thor, essentially a hot headed pretty boy. This does not sit well with younger son Loki, who wants the crown for himself. It doesn't take much goading for Thor to act thoughtlessly and risk the peace his father fought so hard for. His punishment is to be banished to Earth, without his powers.

And so enters Natalie Portman, who plays some kind of Astrophysicist working in New Mexico alongside Skellen Skarsgard trying to figure out these weird space phenomenon that keep happening. Naturally when Thor arrives she hits him with her car, and from there it's, well, some kind of goofy attraction at first sight. Thor immediately sets about being Thor, trying to strong-arm his way back to retrieving his hammer, but soon realizes that he's just a man, and needs help. It's then up to him to finally grow up a little bit and figure out how to get back home again to save his father from his brother.

This is quite a shallow movie, balanced precariously on the charm of it's leading man and some action sequences involving Thor hitting various things with his hammer. And while both things are reasonably OK, we really are expecting a bit more in this day and age. Or at least I am. Perhaps I'm just simply cut off from this kind of movie, all style with a small bit of meaning in the middle. Kenneth Branagh has directed his actors well, but there's just simply not a lot for them to do, or even be, hence I expect the rather large amount of Shield nonsense throughout. And when is Hollywood going to finally understand what the word 'immortal' actually means? Two fancy costumes out of Five.

- Peace out

Well Here We Are

2011-05-05T21:15:00.009+12:00

Conditions: Cold, jittery.

Ding Dong The Witch is Dead.

As I type I can see people celebrating in New York city. They laugh and cheer and carry flags about while chanting "U.S.A" "U.S.A" "U.S.A". They mug for the cameras and smile and dance with each other. It's very early in the morning there, and crowds have congregated to Ground Zero in celebration. In Washington there's another crowd who have gathered outside the white house. They too are singing and laughing. There's a few bagpipers who are playing Amazing Grace. People are thowing streamewrs in to the air. What has prompted this sudden outpouring of good cheer?

Osama bin Laden, the elusive mastermind behind the devastating September 11, 2001, terror attacks that led the United States into war in Afghanistan and later Iraq, was killed in a firefight, President Barack Obama said Sunday.
[...]

Obama said a small team of Americans killed bin Laden early Sunday in the town of Abbottabat, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the capital Islamabad, U.S., Pakistani officials said. The team took custody of his remains and American officials said they were being handled in accordance with Islamic tradition.

- indianexpress.com/news

Yes, after a 10 year man hunt the most wanted man in the world is dead. Executed by special forces soldiers in a Villa in Pakistan. So with the apparent mastermind of Al Queda dead, is that the end of the war on terror? Can America finally now creep out from behind the big rock they've been under, and start regaining some sanity?

LONDON - World leaders from Britain to Japan on Monday hailed the death of Osama bin Laden and urged heightened security precautions in its aftermath. News of the terror leader’s killing by U.S. forces in Pakistan boosted the dollar, sending stock markets higher in Asia and driving down the price of oil.

In official reactions and global media reports, there was a broad sense that the successful operation amounted to a personal victory for Americans and a milestone in the fight against extremism.

- washingtonpost.com/world/

So the stock market is climbing, and it looks like security will be ramped up in the aftermath. Terr-ific.

The mood this morning is likely to be more sober, as Americans cast their minds back on past premature declarations of victory, in Afghanistan at the end of 2001 and at George W Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" triumphalism over Iraq in 2003.

The struggle against terrorism does not give itself easily to neat beginnings and endings. In one sense, the "war on terror" ended in March 2009 when the incoming Obama administration decided it was a counter-productive phrase in the first place, bringing America's enemies together rather than dividing them.

After being driven from Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaida's response was to transform itself into a far looser global network that would be harder to destroy. In its most dilute form, al-Qaida is little more than a franchise that alienated groups around the world can sign up for, exchanging formal oaths of allegiance for the dread that the name inspires in their enemies.

The most likely short-term impact of Bin Laden's death is an increase in al-Qaida attacks around the world, as the martyr effect kicks in and these disparate groups carry out attacks to ensure that the killing of their spiritual leader does not go unavenged. If they fail to do so, their supporters and enemies alike could rightly question whether they are still in business at all.

- guardian.co.uk/world/

And there we have it, the glaring and obvious truth. That the war on terror has been handled so badly that the leader and figurehead of the terrorist network Al Queda was able to settle into life in a Pakistani Villa. His organisation had time enough to reconfigure itself to operate effectively without him. And that when he was finally apprehended he was not arrested and put on trial for his crimes, which I reluctantly feel I should point out would have been the preferred outcome, but instead killed that likely will prompt some kind of retalliation and ensuring any possible victory or value that could have been gotten from this guy has been pissed away. Let the revelry continue.

Film Review: Fast and the Furious 5.

Or Fast 5, or 5ast and 5urious, whatever the kids are calling it these days. Fed up with doing sequels where someone gets in trouble and everyone else has to drive like lunatics to help out, the filmmakers have decided for the latest round of the Fast franchise to do an Ocean's 11 on wheels. Which is the Italian Job. But not the classic 60's Italian Job, more like the recent one with Marky Mark, BMW's, and a dead Donald Sutherland. However even this lowered bar proves a mighty challenge for the likes of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as they assemble a rag-tag crew of people from the last four movies, because they're going up against a notorious Rio drug kingpin who has the entire city's police force in his pocket. Which is just as well since they probably end up killing most of the cops, as well as a significant number of bystanders, in the truly ludicrous finale.

There's an effort to concentrate on the theme of family, where Walker's character becomes a father, and Vin therefore an uncle, and the various other half-remembered faces are included in the family mashup as well. But really, the overall theme I got from the film was a steady undertone of desperate viciousness. We begin right at the end of the last one which was (since no one remembers) where Vin was sentenced to jail and put on a prison bus. Our heroes (? really?) bust him out by triggering one of the biggest bus crashes I've ever seen. But it's ok, apparently no one else escapes, or even gets hurt. This is probably the first film I remember where you know the filmmakers are just flat out lying to you, likely because they know that the audience doesn't really care. Wheee: bus crash. Anyway, our heroes (? maybe?) go to Rio to steal cars for a living, only top fall foul of said drug kingpin. Enter The Rock(tm) playing some kind of American Marshal with the power to basically charge around Rio in a tank as if it's Bagdhad, doing whatever he wants in pursuit of the team. I can't decide whether he puts the term "bad" or the term "ass" into the word "badass". Perhaps it's a full sweep. Eventually he gets his chance to fight Vin Diesel, in a carefully choreographed brawl where Vin wins but totally lets The Rock off the hook. I guess that's why Vin's name is above the title.

Anyway, after much bullshitting around the team decide that instead of some clever plan to steal the bad guys' money from his safe in the building, they can just smash though the walls and steal the safe itself, towing it through the streets of Rio behind two muscle cars. If you've seen the trailer you can imagine how that turns out. This really comes across as a mean film, where everyone is desperate to destroy whatever stands between them and getting paid. And in the end the good guys win (again: ?) and retire to live the good life with all that stolen drug money, and I can't help but wonder exactly why we in the audience are meant to care for any of these chumps at all? Seriously, we all like Vin Diesel, and the other guys are okay, but why in these movies should we give a damn for these characters? Maybe it's my mistake, for looking at characters in a Fast & Furious film, so packed to the brim with roaring engines and stylish flash that there's simply no room left over for actual depth. And being pregnant doesn't count. Two pancaked cop cars out of Five.

-Peace out

The Comfort of Chaos

2011-04-24T14:21:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Just About Perfect

Not Reading The Fine Print.

It never ceases to amaze me how easily people can allow themselves to be wound up over the bloody obvious. Come out with a scientific paper that proves cigarettes are bad for you and the people are in shock! Release a story about a politician cheating on his wife and the people are scandalized!! Put photos of dead civilians killed during warfare, and the people are outraged!! And always the overriding thought is "how dare they confront me with this truth?" Because of course the outrage and surprise is pure uncut bullshit. We were never surprised, the outcomes were logical. And so it is with some humor we uncover the latest "scandal" about mobile phones. Turns out they can be used to keep track of your movements! The hell you say?!

Amid rising scrutiny of their practices, Google Inc. defended the way it collects location data from Android phones, while Apple Inc. remained silent for a third day.

The companies' smartphones regularly transmit locations back to Google and Apple servers, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

Research by a security analyst this week found that an Android phone collected location data every few seconds and sent it to Google several times an hour. Apple disclosed in a letter to Congress last year that its phones "intermittently" collect location data, and the company receives it twice a day.

Both companies have said users can prevent the data collection by turning off location-based services, although doing so limits functions such as maps.

- wsj.com/

And of course in the time-honored tradition of software application options, it's set a certain way by default and it's likely damn difficult to turn it off, or fully understand all it does. Hence perhaps the suspicion of skullduggery, but honestly. In this day and age being surprised that your cellphone can track your movements is equivalent to being surprised that there really isn't some kind of magical bunny that shits out chocolate eggs.

It's kind of sad, but in another way amusing, to see everyone climbing up onto their high horses yet again. "What do you mean this mobile digital communication device can be used to track me? The nerve of you corporations!" I mean for pete's sake. It's the twenty first century, can we at least try to act a little more grown up about these things?

Film Review: Sucker Punch

This Snyder is a stylish guy, I bet he even brushes his teeth in slow motion with a heavy rock beat. After bringing us the large-scale epics of 300 and Watchmen, director Zach Snyder has turned inward for his latest film, Sucker Punch, which is essentially about a girl who finds freedom by escaping into her own mind, unleashing her imagination as a last chance to escape reality. Set in an insane asylum, our young heroine transforms it into a 30's style burlesque house. Confronted with a therapist who uses a stage to help patients act out their fears, she transforms it into wild missions where she and her friends must fight their way through great armies and monsters to reach their goals. Confronted with a warden who pimps out the patients, she comes up with an escape plan.

See, our heroine has five days to escape before she is lobotomized/sold to a high-roller, and is determined to escape before her time is up. Sucker Punch is a wildly, wildly imaginative movie about imagination. It's highly metaphorical, where the story is being told more visually than through dialog. The escape plan relies on our hero to distract people with her dancing, while her partners are able to grab the items they need. But the dancing is interpreted by the director as wild action sequences where the five of them go on outrageous missions that require the slaying of a vast amount of bad guys and monsters in order to collect the necessary items.

While visually stunning, what's interesting about this film is that you have to decide just how much is real and what your interpretation of it is. Does our main protagonist find a form of freedom from the asylum she was consigned to? Whose story is it, anyway? And is this a female-empowering film, despite our heroes being scantily-clad babes who are essentially slaves? Well I believe this is an empowering film. The characters take control of their destinies and fight (a lot) to escape their predicament. You know on a purely surface level this would seem a shallow nonsensical film, full of mad action and cute girls. But actually look at what's going on, and seriously understand the motives at play and you can see that this is a meaningful movie about imagination and sacrifice, and camaraderie. Add to that a director who is at the top of his game in terms of visual style, and you have a very interesting and exciting film. The only possible detraction is that it the overall story becomes a little incoherent the more we escape into the fantasy. Though is that criticism or preference? Four steam powered Nazis out of Five.

- Peace out

The Places You Won't Go

2011-04-17T09:50:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Hard.

The Shit That Shouldn't Happen

This week we've seen the rise and fall of the sleeping air traffic controller scandal, where a number of airports across America have reported that landing planes have been cut off from ground control due to ground control being asleep.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport will get a second nighttime air-traffic controller after two flights had to land unaided, possibly because the lone person on duty was asleep. That controller was suspended.

“It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
[...]

The National Transportation Safety Board began an examination after pilots on two flights were unable to contact air-traffic control at the hub airport outside Washington, forcing them to land unassisted, Peter Knudson, a spokesman, said in an interview yesterday. The board doesn’t yet know why contact couldn’t be made, and it is looking at the possibility that the sole controller on duty was asleep, he said.

The AMR Corp. (AMR) American Airlines and United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL) United planes involved landed safely around midnight on March 22, Knudson said.

The American pilots aborted a first landing attempt when no one in the tower responded to calls, and landed the second time without assistance, Knudson said. The United pilots regarded the airport the same as others that don’t have controllers in early morning hours, and landed on the first attempt, he said.

The planes were in contact with controllers at a regional center in Virginia, he said.

- bloomberg.com/news/

Here's what I don't get: I don't get how this could have been allowed to happen in the first place. How could organizations running airports have allowed a situation where just one person is in the tower through the night and is therefore solely responsible for landing places? And it's only now that we're all getting on our high horses about people falling asleep and planes landing themselves? I feel sorry for the controllers, obviously being forced past their limit and eventually breaking under the strain. I've watched the Discovery Channel, and I know that in any air investigation when that happens, you have to go back to all the times in the past when the problem could have been identified and fixed, and was not.

Film Review: Limitless

Before it even starts, this film has a strike against it. It's one of these films that starts out with the ending, then cycles back to the start, which means we then have to spend the next hour and a half waiting to get back to the point we started from. I hate this technique, and what's more it indicates a lack of confidence in the story: the director is bribing you to stick around till the end by giving a quick taste of it at the start. And frankly, I think they were right to lack confidence in the story. Limitless tells the tale of a shiftless loser who stumbles onto an illegal wonder drug that makes him super smart and focused like a laser. The problem is that he only has a limited amount of pills, and it becomes apparent that if you stop taking the pills you die, and if you take too many, you start skipping forward in time. So to start with the loser, played well by Bradley Cooper, uses it to write his book, and clean up his life. But the lesson of this film, the one effectively written across the top of the screen, is that enough is not enough.

So Bradley comes up with a plan. It's a brilliant plan, except we don't get told what the plan is. The plan requires money, so Bradley naturally becomes a wall street genius, which brings him to the attention of the sharks. Both the ones who wear suits, and the ones who don't. Russian mobsters are now after him, because they know about the pills. And Wall Street goons are after him, because they know about the pills. In fact the further along we go, the more it becomes apparent that a lot of successful focused people know about the pills. Including Robert Deniro, who plays a Gordon Gecko type tycoon who's meant to be part mentor, part competition to Bradley. It seems obvious to me, and everyone else in the theater, that the fact that the pills can kill you make them not good. And the fact that there's a limited supply is not good. There's a very real possibility that Bradley killed a girl one night after taking one pill too many, and that too is not good. But instead of trying to solve any of these problems, the director essentially gives up.

After slowly and carefully spending nearly two hours backing his lead character into a corner, or more accurately pushing him up onto a ledge, he then provides one of the quickest and laziest reversals I've ever seen. And the film literally ends with Bradley not having learned a damn thing. In fact, this film is a heartfelt endorsement of the drug mentality. That all that matters is getting what you can, and that salvation lies in some wicked combination of chemicals. As long as you have money, smarts and deep blue eyes, you can have anything. This is a terrible movie. It's truly awful, with no redeeming factors at all, and near the end of the film I found myself actively rooting for some Russian thug to blow the hero's brains out. Why not, this guy does literally nothing at all that's worthy of any kind of redemption or success of any kind. Because it's not about worth, it's about luck, and ruthlessness. One pill out of five.

- Peace out

Here We Go Again

2011-04-03T23:15:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Dusty.

That Old Sinking Feeling

Recently the western powers decided that Libya required a no-fly zone. This is because there is currently a civil war brewing in the country, and the leader, Gaddafi, was using his air force to wipe out the rebels. Since no one likes Gaddafi, Nato's response is to setup a no fly zone in order to allow the rebels to stay in the fight. But a funny thing happened once the resolution was passed. Because I was under the impression that a no fly zone only meant you were allowed to shoot down their planes which were, you know, flying in a no fly zone.

A coalition air strike has killed seven civilians and injured 25 injured, according to a doctor working with rebel forces.

Dr Suleiman Refardi said that the incident happened on Wednesday in the village of Zawia el Argobe, near Brega, when the air strike hit an ammunition truck in a pro-Gaddafi convoy and damaged two houses. According to the doctor, the dead were four girls aged between 12 and 16 and three youths aged between 14 and 20.

The doctor said that villagers considered the casualties a "sacrifice and a price worth paying" for stopping Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's troops from taking back rebel-held territory. Zawia el Argobe is nine miles from Brega, where rebels forces are massed.

Nato officials said that they were making inquiries "down our operations chain to find out if indeed there is any information on the operation side that would support this claim".

Details of the incident came as Libyan rebels called for a ceasefire after Gaddafi forces drove them back for a third day after sandstorms and clouds hindered Nato air strikes.

- telegraph.co.uk/news/

See from what I've been hearing, a lot of the action being carried out by the Coalition forces seemed to be more along the lines of straight up military action, rather than just "no-fly-zone" action. Unless of course that was some kind of new, flying, ammunition truck they were targeting in Zawia el Argobe. Are we actually at war in Libya? Who the hell approved that?

The House of Commons is debating the government stance on UN resolution 1973, having been invited to give its approval or withhold it. It's a bit late, as the prime minister made a statement to the Commons on Friday and within 24 hours the bombing had started. We are presented with a fait accompli.

The debate, however, takes place against a background of growing concerns about the nature of the military operation, the intensity of the air strikes, the implications for the whole region, and the real motive behind the Arab League in calling for this in the first place. India is the first country to publicly call for a cessation of air strikes. Others are likely to follow.

UN security council resolution 1973 was heavily trailed as a no-fly-zone resolution. Like most UN resolutions it is very long. It specifically welcomed the appointment of the UN special envoy Abdel-Elah Mohamed Al-Khatib and in its proposals under chapter 7 of the UN charter (mandatory for all member states) demanded a ceasefire, stressed the need to find a solution to the conflict through the UN special envoy, and demanded that the Libyan authorities fulfil their international obligations under humanitarian law.

- guardian.co.uk/

Look nobody likes Gaddafi, the man by most accounts is a monster, but I thought we learned (yet again) in the Iraq war that attacking a country to get them to depose their leader never, ever, works. Remember how we chiseled that lesson across George W Bush's forehead? Remember George W Bush?

We couldn't possible have forgotten that already, surely?

Film Review: World Invasion. Battle: Los Angeles

If you watched Black Hawk Down and thought to yourself 'Yes, not bad, but it would have better with aliens instead of Africans", then this is the film for you. Battle: Los Angeles tells the tale of one marine unit's adventures in the middle of a surprise alien attack on the Californian coastline. They're attacking everywhere else as well, but it's just L.A that we see, for this movie at least. Focusing on just the one unit allows the filmmakers to not have to bother too much with generals and presidents and Europe and all the other hoo-hah more ambitious alien-invasion films have to concern themselves with. Aaron Eckhart plays a staff sergeant fresh from a rough tour in the middle east, who's impending retirement is interrupted by some intergalactic bullies. We're quickly introduced to the cannon fodder, I mean, soldiers who make up the unit we'll be attached to, each with their own cliche to carry, and then we're into the chopper and away.

The film is shot handheld-style, and is constructed just like a video game. The only thing missing is a controller. Our task is to get to an abandoned police station that apparently is sheltering some civilians, and get them out before the air force levels the place. Once there we need to find a bus to escape in, and then a chopper to get the civilians out on. Then the finale where we take on the command and control ship in order to take out the Alien drone air force. But despite the video-game style plot, the actors do a heroic job in breathing some life and character into this film. The ongoing battle scenes are shot very realistically, and despite the annoyance of the shaky-cam you can experience the chaos and fear of close-quarters combat.

The underlying current, being pushed by Eckhart, is based on his last tour where a bunch of his men were killed, and he now carries that burden. Can he overcome his feelings of guilt to lead again and make the hard decisions? Will the marines trust him and fight by his side? Despite it being an alien invasion movie, it's actually a pretty fair war film, complete with gritty rubble-strewn camaraderie and grimy desperation. Unfortunately, I am not and will never be a fan of the relentless shaky-cam style of filmmaking, which always comes across to me as distracting and annoying. I believe this film would have been much much better without it, but of course without it they would likely have had to spend more money on the special effects. So in the end it's a small chaotic snapshot of a bigger overall war, full of bravery and sacrifice and a little bit of human drama thrown in as well, only really difficult to see. Three and a half grenades out of five.

- Peace out

Man's Stupidity To Man

2011-03-27T22:17:00.011+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Shitty

Uncaring

Why does this keep happening? In the Afghani-Pakistani border region this week, apparently operators of the American airborne hunter killers spotted what they believed were some high-priority terrorist targets driving along in a car, so they shot off a bunch of missiles at the car, missed and blew up a nearby tribal meeting, killing 40 people.

At least four militants in the vehicles were killed, local officials said. Most of the rest who died were elders, local traders and members of the tribal police.

"The world should try and find out how many of the 40-odd people killed in the drone attack were members of al-Qaeda," the elders said in their statement following the attack near North Waziristan's regional capital, Miranshah.

"It was just a jirga being held under local customs in which the prominent elders of Datta Khel sub-division, and common people were participating to resolve a dispute.

"But the Americans did not spare our elders even.

One of the elders, Malik Faridullah Wazir Khan, said he reached the scene 30 minutes after the missiles hit - four of his relatives were killed.

"The area was completely covered in blood," he told the BBC.

"There were no bodies, only body parts - hands, legs and eyes scattered around. I could not recognise anyone. People carried away the body parts in shopping bags and clothing or with bits of wood, whatever they could find."

He said 44 people died at the scene, including 13 children - one as young as seven.

- bbc.co.uk/

Of course this isn't the first time this has happened, it's not even the tenth. And yet despite that, nothing continues to be done about this. Quite the opposite, in fact as the ex-head of the CIA claims the war is being won thanks to the hunter killer units.

Former CIA director, Gen Michael Hayden, could not sing their praises loudly enough - although ironically the word "drone" cannot pass his lips, so sensitive and allegedly secret is the CIA's programme of targeted killings. How can a programme be secret when its results are plain for all to see?

Former director of the CIA Gen Michael Hayden Gen Hayden said the use of drones was an "inherent right" Gen Michael Hayden believed the results had been spectacular.

"A significant fraction of al-Qaeda senior leadership in the tribal region has been 'taken off the battlefield'," he said. "That used to mean 'killed or captured'. In the last couple of years it simply means killed. We just aren't doing any capturing."

Ironically the CIA's drone programme was greatly accelerated under President Obama who has authorised more than 160 Predator missions - four times as many as his predecessor, President George W Bush, targeting not just al-Qaeda but Taliban leaders also hiding in the border areas.

It remains unbelievable to me that in this day and age the American military operates a remote robot-driven assassination squad over a foreign country, totally out in the open and endorsed by the President, and nobody cares. And they say racism is dead.

Gen Hayden denied the attacks were state-authorised assassinations. He said the US was at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was simply acting in self-defence. When I pointed out that legally the war was in Afghanistan not Pakistan, he said that was not how the American administration looked at it.

"No they're not assassinations. This is a war, this is action against opposing armed enemy force. This is an inherent right of America to self-defence.

Self Defense. See, this is the madness to which people have been driven in their fear. Apparently, in self defense it's okay to commit war crimes and lash out blindly at whoever you think is a threat. And if you happen to kill civilians or terrorist operatives, it doesn't matter because nobody ever goes and checks the bodies anyway.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the attacks, although it is impossible to put a precise figure on the number of innocent victims. It is estimated by the New America Foundation that between 2004 and 2010 they may represent around 25% of those killed.
Human rights lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic have grown increasingly concerned about the US government appearing to act as judge, jury and executioner. Jameel Jaffer of the American Council for Civil Liberties said: "This is quite an awesome power, the power to label somebody as an enemy [then] wipe them out without judicial process of any kind."
- bbc.co.uk/

This is never going to work. It's never going to get anywhere. And since America will not spend the billions to occupy the region, the only way America can win this war is by eventually negotiating a treaty with the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Therefore randomly blowing up people with drones is only making things worse. How long must we wait for common sense?

Film Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Yet another adaptation of a Phillip K Dick short story, the Adjustment Bureau stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt and tells the story of an aspiring politician who meets a dancer, falls in love, and then is told by suit-wearing angels that he can never seen her again. The angels, though they hate that name, work for the "Chairman" upstairs, and wear hats that allow them to use ordinary doors to travel around cities very quickly, and carry books that map out peoples lives and the decisions they make. When a person is about to make a choice that doesn't fit with the "plan", the angels have to find a way to stop it. From spilling someones coffee so they miss a bus, to freezing time and wielding some kind of device that changes the thoughts in someones head.

Obviously we humans never see any of this, but when Matt Damon "accidentally" bumps into Emily Blunt again, this time on the bus, the angels are forced to reveal themselves to him and warn him to never see her again, because the two of them together is not in the plan. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and Matt is determined to find her once more. This film poses some interesting questions about fate and will, all woven into a quite believable romance between Matt and Emily. Their chemistry together is basically what sells the film, and it wouldn't have worked without them clicking so well.

With the help of one of the angels, Matt battles to find Emily again and change his fate. It's actually quite an enjoyable film, kind of old fashioned but a nice kind of old fashioned. Stylish rather than stuffy. You find yourself rooting for these characters and hoping for some kind of happy ending. And of course there is one on offer, but after two hours of discussions about the plan, and how humans can't have free will after you see what we do with it. an ending that essentially goes against all that tends to jar a little bit. When you set up rules in a movie, and then break them at the end in order to have a happy ending the audience may smile, but there is the sense that the film cheated a little bit to get there. Three hats out of Five.

- Peace out

The Reckoning

2011-03-20T13:49:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Bloody Awful

Riding The Bomb.

Reaction to the nuclear disaster in Japan has been quick and, I fear, somewhat knee-jerky. Horror of a nuclear meltdown in the face of earthquake and tsunami has lead quickly to a shutdown of both proposed new nuclear power stations in other countries, and promises to "review" the existing ones.

Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted to the disaster. All nuclear power plants in Germany would be inspected and seven of them were temporarily switched off. Stefan Mappus reacted via a press release in which he stated for the record, "Considering the events in Japan, the Federal government's decision to discontinue the prolongation of the life spans of nuclear power plants is forceful, courageous and correct." It is a late insight, for the state parliamentary election is imminent. The voters doubt the credibility of the minister president.

It was a major coincidence that a large demonstration against nuclear power was held in Baden-Württemberg of all places. The 45km-long human chain that ranged from Neckarwestheim to Stuttgart was certainly symbolic. And a lot more protests are going on in cities like Berlin. Over 100,000 people protested against nuclear power. And everyone wears yellow buttons with the slogan "nuclear power – no thanks".

- timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Now I realise the specter of an earthquake prompting a Chernobyl-style meltdown is unpleasant, but frankly the human race has got to be realistic about this. And realistically our hustling bustling energy-burning civilization is simply not sustainable on wind power or water power alone. And burning coal has been judged to be poisoning the atmosphere. Nuclear power provides a pretty great option. What is required now is not an overly-reactive withdrawal from nuclear power but a more careful consideration of how we manage it. With care, this system can work safely. Unfortunately, to be truly safe a lot of work and money is going to need to be spent.

Many Californians sought assurances that radiation escaping the Japanese reactors would not reach across the Pacific to contaminate the west coast, while experts totted up the number of US nuclear facilities on - or near - major fault lines where "worst-case'' fears mirror events unfolding in Japan.

Unsurprisingly, of the 65 reactors that fell into that category, California's San Onofre plant, 70 kilometres south-east of Long Beach, and the facility at Diablo Canyon, 100 kilometres north of Santa Barbara, were prominent, both resting on the fault-laden Pacific coast.

Both 1980s-era constructions, the plants are located within reach of significant populations. More than 9 million people live within 80 kilometres of the former, a distance noted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as particularly vulnerable in the event of mishap.

- smh.com.au/

Of course the closer the plant is to the people then the less loss you have in transmission of the power, so some better choices are going to need to be made for these locations where the cities are on active earthquake zones. Also, the plants themselves can and have been built much safer:

The fires at Fukushima have also triggered serious criticism of the plant's design. The decision to place storage tanks close to reactors has been pinpointed as a key design error. When those reactors caught fire, they quickly triggered reactions in the storage tanks which themselves caught fire, and so the fires spread.
[...]

However, Sherry defended the ageing plant – whose six reactors came on line between 1970 and 1979. "These reactors were designed in the 1960s and we have learned a lot since then. Modern plants are much safer. Think of cars in the 1960s: they didn't have crumple zones, airbags or seat belts – features we all take for granted today. It is the same with nuclear reactor design."

The Fukushima reactors, known as boiling water reactors, have active safety features – you have to do something to prevent dangerous heating, such as ensuring that the pumps are activated.

"By contrast, new reactors are designed to include 'passive' safety systems that are designed to shut down and cool fuel without the need for power being available at the plant," said Barry Marsden, professor of nuclear graphite technology at Manchester University. Modern reactors also have double or triple back-up safety systems.

- guardian.co.uk/

It seems to me that we're seeing more than a dangerous outcome of a powerful technology not under full control. We're also seeing the wielding of that power change for the better, as more and more world leaders react to the fear caused by the terrible pictures coming out of Japan. And ultimately that could be a good thing. We can't go back, but we can better appreciate what is required to continue going forward.

Film Review: White Out

Ah, thriller movies. A good thriller is like chocolate. It's bad for you in the long run, but it's oh so good in small doses. White Out is a thriller set in Antarctica, where Kate Beckinsale is the lone US Marshal at the main American scientific base. And she's got a problem because there's a killer on the loose, murdering a couple of archeologists and trying to kill her with an ice axe when she tries to investigate. Gradually the plot reveals how it's tied in to a Russian military aircraft that crashed in Antarctica 50 years earlier, and what was on it, and exactly who is involved in the killings, and why.

In reality, the fact that this film is set in Antarctica is really the only thing that sets it apart from other films. Kate does her best with the role, and Tom Skerrit is there to provide some support, but really it's all fairly standard thriller fare. You've got the time pressure provided by a big storm bearing down on the base, and a small cast of characters from whence you must figure out who is the guilty party, and a sense of claustrophobia coming from the Base Camp's narrow corridors and small rooms.

At least the film is shot fairly well, with attention paid to atmosphere and cinematography. And the lead character is given something of a back story to fully explain why she's there. Of course there's a twist, but unfortunately it's a twist that can be guessed at fairly early on in proceedings. Ultimately the film is a reasonably simple thriller film, just set in Antarctica. Two and a half fingers out of five.

- Peace out

Wall To Wall

2011-03-13T10:13:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Shaken to the bone.

Dark Days

Hearts and thoughts go out to the Japanese and the Kiwis struggling in the aftermath of Earth's destructive fury. Hang in there.

Film Review: The Fourth Kind.

The Fourth Kind is decidedly not your average kind of thriller. Your first clue comes right at the start where the lead actress comes out and tells you that this isn't your average kind of thriller, that it's based on real events. The second clue comes around the point where the screen splits in two and the exact same scene is played out on both the left and the right hand side. The difference is that on the one side are the actors in the film, and on the other side is apparently the actual footage that was taken when it actually happened. This is a new idea, to me at least, and at first I found it distracting. But when the film kicks into gear you quickly realise why they have done it in this way, because frankly if they had not then the default reaction to what we see is to totally disbelieve it.

Easily one of the most scary films I have ever seen, the Fourth Kind is a thriller based on a true story about a small, quiet remote town in Alaska where it turns out the residents are getting abducted by aliens, who then don't do quite as good a job erasing memories of the abduction as one would have hoped. I feel odd calling it a film, though. It has actors, and it certainly is dramatic, but it really comes across as more of a documentary than anything else. Which only serves to make it way more frightening than if it had been shot as a straight-up film. There isn't really an ending, either, no way of finishing the story. Milla Jovovich plays Dr Abbey, a psychiatrist who's husband has been recently murdered. On top of that, suddenly her patients are telling her they can't sleep at night, that they're getting woken up at three in the morning by an owl. An owl outside the window, an owl that is then inside the house, an owl that is standing over them. And then it's not an owl.

One guy saying this can get laughed off, but three? To get to the bottom of it, Abbey puts one of these guys under hypnosis to relive the event. And basically that is where the shit hits the fan. The film rapidly escalates into a genuinely frightening investigation of who, or more appropriately what, is causing these perceived visitations. And the more they dig into this, principally using hypnosis to uncover the memories of what happened, the more violent and dangerous the reactions become. Abby ends up confronting her own demons, along with the entities who have terrorized the town. and the cost is terrible. I've always admired films that can scare you with ideas instead of resorting to blood and torture and cheap jumps, and this film is worthy of respect for how well it works.

However, there is a second part to this movie, and it begins once the credits roll, because some genuine questions have been raised, not least directly by the cast themselves who return at the end to tell you how real it all is, and to decide for yourself. Living as we do in the age of the Internet, it is not difficult to go online and start asking questions about this film, and to see what others had to say about it. Which is when you discover that the entire film is a total lie. Turns out nothing, no part of it was actually real and that the split screen stuff was just different actors and a more shaky 'realistic' camera. Reactions to this, as you can imagine, have been mostly scornful, which is likely a response people have after being scared. Like being angry at a flapping curtain you thought was a ghost. But apart from that, you have to give some credit to the director who has taken a somewhat scary idea and ramped up to 11 by fully playing up the whole "based on true event's" idea that other films have tried to use. All I know is, I was totally convinced at the time, and while disappointed to find out it wasn't real after all, I think I'm also a bit glad as well. Four Sumerian Gods out of Five.

- Peace out (if at all possible)

Urge To Kill Rising

2011-02-20T22:28:00.004+12:00

Conditions: Overcast-y

The Old Barn Door.

In a flurry of righteousness amid the "current" revelations that the Iraqi spy known as Curveball, whom everyone in the entire world knew to be lying back in 2003, was actually lying back in 2003 in order to get Saddam Hussein toppled, disgraced former secretary of state Colin Powell has asked for an explanation. What, now?

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons capability.

Responding to the Guardian's revelation that the source, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi or "Curveball" as his US and German handlers called him, admitted fabricating evidence of Iraq's secret biological weapons programme, Powell said that questions should be put to the US agencies involved in compiling the case for war.

In particular he singled out the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – the Pentagon's military intelligence arm. Janabi, an Iraqi defector, was used as the primary source by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. Doubts about his credibility circulated before the war and have been confirmed by his admission this week that he lied.

Powell said that the CIA and DIA should face questions about why they failed to sound the alarm about Janabi. He demanded to know why it had not been made clear to him that Curveball was totally unreliable before false information was put into the key intelligence assessment, or NIE, put before Congress, into the president's state of the union address two months before the war and into his own speech to the UN.

You know, politicians sicken me. Yet another whiff of that sense that it's more important to them to be seen doing what everyone wants them to do, rather than the pesky task of figuring out the right thing to do. At the time Powell crumbled in the face of righteous patriotic fervor and heartily toed the party line, accusing Saddam of having chemical weapons and being a direct threat to America in a famous address to the U.N. And now he's acting the part of the righteous innocent, all "who, me?" in the face of the tepid backlash that's been far too long and ineffective in coming.

Then then-head of the CIA, George Tenet, is another one scuttling away from the light as fast as his little legs will take him. As Powell tries to deflect in his direction, Tenet is ready and waiting

George Tenet, then head of the CIA, is particularly in the firing line. He failed to pass on warnings from German intelligence about Curveball's reliability.

Tenet put out a statement on his website in response to Curveball's admission. He said: "The handling of this matter is certainly a textbook case of how not to deal with defector provided material. But the latest reporting of the subject repeats and amplifies a great deal of misinformation."

Tenet refers to his own 2007 memoir on the war, At the Centre of the Storm, in which he insists that the first he heard about Curveball's unreliability was two years after the invasion – "too late to do a damn thing about it".

- guardian.co.uk/

A claim which has already been dis-proven and denied by the Germans, whose intelligence agency said they told the CIA how unreliable Curveball was right from the start. Will it make a difference now? Will justice be found? Of course bloody not, they've been very careful in letting it all wash over before allowing the backlash to rise up.

Film Review: Fair Game.

Well here we are again. Every now and then yet another film comes out that touches on the Iraq war, and here's the latest. This time it's directed by Doug Liman and it focuses on the Valerie Plame saga, the CIA operative who was outed by the Vice President after her husband denounced the President's lies about Iraq purchasing YellowCake Uranium in Niger. Sean Penn plays Joe Wilson, Valerie's husband, and Naomi Watts plays Valerie. Together they make a totally believable and dramatic portrayal of a couple caught up in an enormous mess, and how they deal with it and each other. In short, her career is ruined, his career is ruined, and their marriage takes a hell of a beating. Also, the truth that both of them, in different ways, were trying to drag into the light about the Iraq war is overshadowed by the scandal brewed up by the white house regarding her to get him to bring back lies from Africa, because he hates America. We get to relive the specter of the white house cherry picking CIA data and using unfounded claims to push for war.

These kind of movies make me angry. It's almost as if this is how America has decided to deal with the fact that the powerful men who run the country created an illegal war that cost god knows how many hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives, in order to be seen to be "doing something" in the wake of 9/11. They're not actually going be arrested, or even questioned. And of course they will never, ever be brought to justice, we have resigned ourselves to this now. And so, as if in some kind of last desperate hopeless gesture, the occasional book or film will come out that rehashes it all over again, from this perspective or that perspective, it doesn't really matter. And no matter the specifics it always ends the same way, with some kind of noble clarion call to the masses that the truth must come out, that the truth will somehow win through, and eventually justice will be done.

And in the end it's all just more and more effort for less and less outcome. Every time the topic rears up it requires more effort to revisit. Stoke the fires back up, get everyone back on that old song again. I don't hold much hope for this film. At this point I severely doubt enough people are going to care enough to buy tickets to go see something they've already put to bed long ago. And that's sad. This is actually a pretty good film, except for the terrible shaky-cam effects that Doug's unfortunately picked up from somewhere. But the actors are doing a fine job, and it's an interesting story. Just too little, far too late. Three and a half lies out of five.

- Peace out

Gonna Cut You Down

2011-02-13T22:55:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Warmish

Democracy and How it Benefits America.

Of course it's a brilliant thing that the long time Egyptian Dictator, or President, Mubarak has finally left the office for good. It might be better if he had left due to an election rather than being forced out, but whatever. The Egyptian people are eying the ideal of democracy. And in the home of democracy, such a movement is lauded as a good thing. But there are of course grave concerns. Mubarak, among other things, was a staunch ally of America and Israel in the effort of keeping an eye on terrorist groups in the middle east. With him out, is that approach what the democratic people of Egypt want?

Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to gain influence if free and fair elections are held, analysts say. The Islamist group has renounced violence but is openly hostile to Israel and may call for more independence from U.S. policies.

"How will cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism develop in the view of these new constraints? I would argue the space will contract," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East expert at the State Department who is now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Some U.S. officials and analysts say they are not overly worried, noting the continued strong role of the Egyptian military and the fact that the United States gives Egypt more than $1.3 billion a year in military aid. Robert Grenier, the former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, said "the Egyptians have as much interest in protecting themselves from violent extremism as everyone else."

- washingtonpost.com/

Money and common sense are all very good reasons, but the concern is that uprisings tend to lead to more uprisings, so let's hope Egypt settles down into a nice stable democracy as quickly as possible.

Film Review: True Grit

Having never seen the previous version of True Grit that starred John Wayne, nor read the book, I can not really state if this version is more accurate, or if Wayne's interpretation of Rooster Cogburn is less edgy or offensive than Jeff Bridges' version. What I can say is that this is a lively if simplistic western tale about a young girl going about getting revenge for the murder of her father. She hires a U.S Marshal (Bridges) and heads off into the wilderness with a Texas Ranger in tow (Matt Damon) (!). Naturally it turns out the business of tracking down desperadoes is a harsh and cruel experience for a fourteen year old, but after a bit of luck she finally gets the confrontation she was after, and pays the price. This is a real adventure story, with unpredictable events and bittersweet outcomes.

It is shot very well by directors Joel and Ethan Coen, who really make the experience come alive in a natural and well-paced manner. Westerns always come across as a little awkward given that the people dress weird, talk funny, and there's lots of horses around, and this one suffers a little more from having a protagonist who is so young and, well, forthright and downright bossy in her manner. Hailee Steinfeld does a brilliant job with the character of Mattie Ross, it's an odd character, no fear or shyness at all at the enormity of the task ahead. If there is any criticism of the film, I suppose it would lie in how little we really end up finding out about this character, who she really is and what she's really feeling. It seems like eventually she is in over her head, but there really is not a lot of character development in a genre which has in the recent years become one that's all about character development.

Matt Damon too acquits himself well as a talkative Texas Ranger who in a way is the most level headed of the group. But it's Jeff Bridges who really dominates as Cogburn, the marshal. A hard-living old-school lawman, who squints through his one eye and mumbles almost every line. He energizes the film, gives it character and depth. An unlikable character, but one you respect and even trust. That performance helps the film along. It's not a gripping western in the way of Unforgiven, perhaps because the bookendings leave us assured that Mattie will survive to the end of the film, but it is a solid tale of the west, very well told. Three and a half spurs out of Five.

- Peace out

Not Really Caring

2011-01-31T20:48:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Bloody Cold.

The Crumbling of Tony Blair

As the British inquiry into the Iraq war continues to drone on, we were yet again treated to former Prime Minister Tony Blair under the spotlight, giving evidence to the inquiry regarding how exactly Britain ended up in this mess. Let's see how he did.

The former Prime Minister told the Iraq Inquiry on Friday that his cabinet were aware from early 2002 that they had endorsed a policy that would probably lead to an attack on Iraq.

But Lord Wilson, who was Cabinet Secretary from 1998 until 2002, and Lord Turnbull who was his successor, have both told the inquiry that this was not the case.

Lord Wilson claimed Mr Blair told his cabinet in a meeting in April 2002 that "nothing was imminent".

Echoing evidence given by other Downing Street officials, Lord Wilson described a lack of official Cabinet meetings in those crucial 15 months before the invasion in March 2003.

I don't think anyone would have gone away thinking they had authorised a course of action that would lead to military action.

- news.sky.com/skynews/

You know, there's a line in a movie that goes "Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got em by the balls." I believe that sentiment sums up the Iraq war nicely. However, what it doesn't cover is what happens when that power starts to leak away. So far it seems to me the cockroaches are scuttling as fast as they can.

Film Review: The Green Hornet.

I guess superhero movies have been around for a while now, so we should expect more and more variations on the superhero theme. The Green Hornet is your anti-anti-hero super hero. Based on the comic book that apparently pre-dates Batman, and so therefore came up with the concept first, the Green Hornet is a kid born into wealth, who loses his parents and decides to fight crime using the family fortune to devise some cool gadgets. The difference is that the Green Hornet has almost no skills himself, only attitude. That and he owns a newspaper that he can use to talk up how great the Green Hornet is. The actual fighting is done by his unnamed sidekick, named Kato, who builds the gadgets, dives the car, and fights the bad guys. Seth Rogan is in the title role, and is pretty well cast as a madcap stoner Bruce Wayne, as you'd expect. Kato is played by Jay Chou, his first english-speaking role. The two have an uneasy relationship on screen, with Kato basically the entire brains and brawn of the operation, but thrust into the background by Seth Rogen's sheer force of personality.

The plot revolves around the crime gangs in L.A being run by this one guy played by Christopher Walz, who's going through some kind of midlife crisis, and is trying to make himself scarier. Faced with the Hornet blowing up his various drug labs, he basically starts shooting his minions. In fact, I really don't get the bad guy in this film. Both nonthreatening, and yet getting crazier by the scene, Walz seems a bit wasted overall. But the real problems really come down to Seth. I liked Seth in Pineapple Express, he was spot on in that film. But unfortunately here he seems to be playing the same character, only now a wannabe playboy heir who's got a ship on his shoulder. Obnoxious, loud, unfunny, he's taking enormous risks in his quest to take on the criminal underworld, but doesn't really seem to care. It's difficult to really care about any character in this film, they seem entirely cut off from any possible bad outcome that could happen to them. Plus Rogen is a millionaire playboy who enjoys partying, and it's physically impossible to sympathise what that kind of person at all.

Cameron Diaz is cast as a secretary/reporter who's basically here to give Rogen an idea of what's he's supposed to do next. Another wasted opportunity, as is Edward James Olmos, who's the chief editor of the newspaper, and is routinely ignored by Rogen in the handful of scenes he actually gets. No, this is a truly different kind of superhero movie. One where the hero doesn't really care, doesn't really have to try too hard, and no one else has much of a clue either. Two knobs out of five.

- Peace out

Magic.

2011-01-24T21:48:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Overcast, tense.

New Tricks

In the middle of 2009, a new computer virus began to circulate around the world. Called Stuxnet, this was a virus unlike anything seen before. Rather than attack computers in general, this one was specifically targeting computers being used in certain types of Nuclear facilities. Iranian nuclear facilities, in fact. As this virus is being examined, it's becoming ever more clear exactly where it came from.

In interviews over the past three months in the United States and Europe, experts who have picked apart the computer worm describe it as far more complex — and ingenious — than anything they had imagined when it began circulating around the world, unexplained, in mid-2009.

Many mysteries remain, chief among them, exactly who constructed a computer worm that appears to have several authors on several continents. But the digital trail is littered with intriguing bits of evidence.

In early 2008 the German company Siemens cooperated with one of the United States’ premier national laboratories, in Idaho, to identify the vulnerabilities of computer controllers that the company sells to operate industrial machinery around the world — and that American intelligence agencies have identified as key equipment in Iran’s enrichment facilities.

Siemens says that program was part of routine efforts to secure its products against cyberattacks. Nonetheless, it gave the Idaho National Laboratory — which is part of the Energy Department, responsible for America’s nuclear arms — the chance to identify well-hidden holes in the Siemens systems that were exploited the next year by Stuxnet.

The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.

- nytimes.com/

As we know, the Americans and the Israelis have been trying to find a way to shut down the Iranian reactor for ages, out of simple fear that once the Iranians become a nuclear power, they won't be able to be intimidated any more. The options have so far ranged from crippling economic sanctions, to assassination of Iranian scientists, to a full-on military strike on the suspected laboratories (this one not yet attempted, but certainly in the works). Now it looks that a fourth option has been employed: the most complex computer virus ever built was somehow smuggled into the Iranian facility (which is not connected to the Internet for security reasons) and set onto the computers there, where it proceeded to wreak enough havoc that the Iranians have been set back at least four years.

This is a new, somewhat Bond-ian approach. However, as clever as it may be, I think it still fails for the same reason that just bombing the facility would fail: the west is not addressing the primary problem. It's not that the Iranians are only trying this because nobody is stopping them, and so will just give up as soon as someone attempts to stop them. It's that the Iranians believe they have to do this to protect themselves. Therefore everything the west has done so far has only reinforced that mindset the Iranians are in - that they are under siege, are surrounded on all sides, and therefore need a nuclear program to defend themselves. Coming up with a clever computer virus may have slowed them down, and done so in one of the least-offensive ways, but ultimately the U.S and Israel are going to have to play this a lot smarter to get the outcome they actually want.

Film Review: Tangled.

You've got to give some credit for persistence. Faced with new animated movies coming out seemingly every other week, created using nothing but computers, and about all sorts of crazy modern nonsense, Disney corporation has decided to remain true to her roots, and so has released Tangled, a somewhat revised re-telling of the Rapunzel fairy story, but still in the grand style of hand-animation, with lots of musical numbers. To be honest, I can't even remember how the classic version goes, but this one has the princess Rapunzel blessed as a baby so that her hair is magical, and then is kidnapped by an evil witch and imprisoned in a tower for eighteen years so the witch can use Rapunzel's hair to stay forever young.

Where things probably get a bit modern in this version is when a debonair thief who's just heisted the royal jewels, bursts into the tower in search of a hideout, and eventually agrees to help Rapunzel temporarily escape the tower in order to see the annual lantern festival in person, a festival that always happens on her birthday. Now I may be getting older, but try as I might I could not really find one redeeming characteristic of the thief, up until the end of the movie anyway. He steals the crown, tips off the guards, abandons his fellow thieves, and breaks into the tower. What kind of modern hero is this? Anyway, Rapunzel can bring out the good in anyone, and away the two of them go. In hot pursuit of are the palace guards, the witch, the thief's two quite-angry former associates, and a particularly dedicated horse. Can they evade their pursuers and get to the festival in time? Well yes of course they can, but that's not the point.

In this retelling, Rapunzel's story becomes one of self-discovery, and self-empowerment, as she learns how to deal with the outside world, falls in love with the thief, and eventually confronts the witch and learns what actually happened to her as a baby, and who she really is. I don't care who you are, or where you're from, this is a magical story that will suit anyone, full of fun and wonder and heart. Rapunzel, in fact the entire cast, are animated and voiced absolutely perfectly, as is the world they inhabit. The story hinges on her reactions to everything, and it's all done so well that you are effortlessly swept along, even through the inevitable musical numbers. And the ending is actually quite dramatic and ultimately very satisfying. Disney proves with this film that they still have what it takes to go toe to toe with Pixar, not by fighting fire with fire, but by doing what they do best. Four lanterns out of Five.

- Peace out

Ow, My Portent!

2011-01-09T21:20:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Storm on the Way

Falling Down

Something decidedly odd happened in Arkansas around News Year eve, well something more odd than usual. A whole bunch of wild animals just up and died.

In a devoutly Christian state such as Arkansas, it's a sequence of events that could get residents leafing through the Book of Revelation for portents: anything up to 5,000 blackbirds fall dead from the sky, and then 100,000 fish wash up along a river.

Environmental officials, however, insist they expect to find scientific explanations for the Biblical-seeming phenomena.

It began, in portentous fashion, approximately half an hour before midnight on New Year's Eve, when the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) began hearing reports of blackbirds falling from the sky in Beebe, a town of approximately 5,000 people in the centre of the state.

- guardian.co.uk/

Officials are citing the possibility of hailstorms and fireworks causing the birds to panic and fly into something hard, but that's not all:

Officials investigating the mysterious deaths of up to 100 birds on a road in Sweden say tests have revealed they suffered external injuries.

Dozens of jackdaws were found in the centre of Falkoeping prompting comparisons with the mysterious deaths of 3,000 birds in the US.

Sweden's National Veterinary Institute said it had tested five of the birds and found evidence of traumatic injury.
[...]

There have been no reports of fireworks or storms in Falkoeping on Tuesday night and fireworks has been ruled by vet officers, who say there is no sign of internal haemorrhaging.

- bbc.co.uk/

Now a truck driver has come forward to say that he hit a bunch of birds, but many of these dead birds were not run over. So what''s going on? I some kind of natural or unnatural force slowly unleashing beneath and around this planet as we head towards the prophesied year 2012? Or are we all just freaking out a little bit after too much eggnog?

Film Review: The Tourist

I can image the pitch of this movie to Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie was as easy as they get. An upper-class spy caper set in Venice, who wouldn't sign up for that? Everyone enjoys movies that are set in exotic locations, and this one makes the most of the city of Venice, swooping over roof-lines, panning across the cityscapes, and showing off the architecture for all it's worth. And speaking of showing off, this is a role Ms Jolie can probably do in her sleep. Look glamorous and act mysterious and aloof? No big stretch there. Basically Angelina is the Lady Penelope of the movie.

So the weight of the film, as it were, falls to Johnny Depp, and he carries us all through the twists and turns. His bookish everyman character keeps us engaged as this fairly straight forward tale of deliberate mistaken identity is played out. Jolie needs a patsy to throw off both the authorities and the bad guys who are chasing her so she can meet up with the mysterious Alexander, but in setting up Depp for the fall she also is inevitably drawn to help him as well.

And so we are inevitably dumped into the finale with the good guys standing off against the bad guys, which is where the big twist occurs. You know there's going to be a twist, but I must say this particular one is quite good. So, a stylish, well-directed film set in Venice and starring two particularly brilliant actors, who play out a cloak and dagger story about spies and gangsters. What's not to enjoy? Three boats out of five.

- Peace out

Happy New What?

2011-01-03T09:12:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Temporary

Movie Year In Review: 2010

As the year finally, thankfully, draws to a close and shuffles off the stage, to be quickly and desperately forgotten by all who sailed in her, we think back to the films that were watched and, in some cases, endured. Split into three categories, I give you:

The Good:

Well with a couple of exceptions, the "good" is really along the lines of the "okay, I guess." So with no further faint praise:

Sherlock Holmes: A little bit too steampunk, a little too familiar, a lot too grey, but the Holmes reboot was at least entertaining.

Edge Of Darkness: A solid thriller, enhanced through the re-appearance of Mel Gibson, now in Cranky Old Man flavour.

Law Abiding Citizen: Gerard Butler gives us a portrayal of a man determined to get revenge even if it means bringing down the entire system. Shame the movie wasn't as relentless as his character was.

Shutter Island: Dicaprio and Scorsese combine yet again to give an effective and lasting thriller with a darn good twist at the end.

9: Brilliant and heartfelt film about puppet-like characters trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world.

Daybreakers: Damn good vampire movie that thoughtfully commentates on what happens when a society reacts to running out of a natural resource. In this case, humans.

The Losers: Fun, entertaining action romp.

The A-Team: Fun, entertaining action romp that re-energises the classic characters with fresh faces. Maybe a bit stage-y at the end.

RED: Fun spy flick featuring some classic actors having a blast.

And finally:
Inception: The only film to get a 5 out of 5 this year, Inception is quite simply a masterpiece. Exciting, intense, complicated, it's a film that leaves the audience a little shaken, and stays with them afterward. Brilliance again from Christopher Nolan and cast.

Toy Story 3: The Pixar gang wrap everything up with another heartfelt and exciting adventure for our favourite toys.

The Misfires
Iron Man 2: The first film was a fluke, the second is the inevitable outcome of not having a solid script for your huge tent pole action move franchise. Directionless, and toothless, this one essentially undoes all the goodwill from the first film

Robin Hood: Here's an idea, how about a Robin Hood movie where Robin has to become Robin Hood. That'll work, right?

The Last Airbender: How do you mess this up? It's all right there on the Nickelodeon channel - just copy that! Instead somehow M Night Shymalan decided to do away with pesky character development and make an overly-simplified movie about a fairly complicated story.

Resident Evil: Afterlife: The Resident Evil franchise goes back to basics, and in doing so ends up with a fairly boring movie. Albeit one that's shot absolutely brilliantly.

The Bad
The Book Of Eli: Unrelentingly and relentlessly grim downer film about the end of the world, and how important the Bible is.

The Hurt Locker: A made-up documentary that doesn't tell a story so much as show off a couple of sterotypes.

Predators: Oy. Predator 3 has the Predators, the weapons, a good cast, but no actual plot, other than "Bad guys get picked off one by one by intergalactic bullies."

The Expendables: While it may look good on paper, teaming up a bunch of half-known action movie actors and rolling them into a half-baked plot about some island republic that's being repressed by goons really isn't all that special.

Gamer: Bad Running Man ripoff. Really bad Running Man ripoff.

Tron Legacy: Okay, making a sequel to a film hardly anyone remembers is one thing, but making a film that is essentially aimed at geeks and having a plot that makes no sense at all is just asking for it.

So, there you have it. A middling year, with a few highlights, and some deep lowlights. Here's hoping for better in 2011.

Film Review: Toy Story 3

In what's presumably the final outing for Woody, Buzz and the gang, Pixar have made the third film a kind of mix of the first film and the second one. Again, the theme is one of toys being eventually abandoned by their owners as they grow up and grow out of playing with toys. This time it's Andy himself who's now too old for playtime, and the gang is confronted with either being dumped in the attic, or thrown out in the trash. Instead, they make their way to a kindergarten, believing it to be a haven where they'll get played with every day, but instead it's more like a prison, run by a bitter old toy who hates children and assigns the gang to the Caterpillar room, where the kids enthusiastically beat the crap out of the toys daily.

Running counter to this is Woody's story, where he's meant to go with Andy to college, but get's accidentally swept along with the others to the kindergarten, and escapes in order to try and get back to Andy. Eventually he has to make a choice, loyalty to Andy his owner, or loyalty to his own family of toys. And while in the end the decision rests with Andy, it's Woody who really chooses to leave Andy and go with his friends.

And go they do, escaping the kindergarten to a new happy ending with a new child who will play with them all every day. It's pretty much a case of being a reboot for the gang, where they survive being lost out in the real world, the horror of the kindergarten, and finally make it to the haven of a new kids bedroom. Again Pixar work their magic with a touching, character-driven story that still has enough juice in the third chapter to evoke the emotions. There's plenty of humour thrown into the mix as well, and who can really argue with a nice neat happy ending. Three and a Half batteries out of Five.

- Peace out

Trapped in a Box

2010-12-27T00:32:00.004+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Jittery.

Juggling Bombs

Christmas tends to bring out the best and worst in people, nicely encapsulated in the following story from Time magazine, where a bunch of Nanotechnologists decided to build a Christmas card that's smaller than a human hair.

So, why did they do this? The researchers say the technology they used to make the Season's Greetings card could be used in products like TVs and cameras. Says Professor David Cumming: "The process to manufacture the card only took 30 minutes. It was very straightforward to produce as the process is highly repeatable. The design of the card took far longer than the production."

The card is invisible to the naked eye, which will make it even more difficult for your grandmother to put a check into.

- newsfeed.time.com

Yeah, well the jokes may write themselves, but frankly I'm thinking that the power of nanotechnology may not be in the safest of hands here. This is literally a technology that could rewrite our civilisation, and these propeller heads are wielding it like it's a sparkler on Guy Fawkes day. This is not something to be joking around with, and I fervently hope most of the scientists involved bloody well sober up and realise the responsibility they've taken on with this science. Hey guys, how about a cure for cancer? You can make it smaller than a pin head if it makes you more motivated.

Film Review: Tron Legacy.

Off the bat I should admit I've never seen the first Tron movie. However since hardly anyone else has seen the first film either, it actually puts me in the majority. The first Tron film was a flop, albeit an odd one. While the ideas of Tron would percolate away in society, the actual movie itself was regarded as an oddity. So it's weird that Disney have decided to make a sequel. Not a remake, not even a re-imagining, but a straight-up sequel, to a film hardly anyone has seen.

Anyway, the gist is that in the first film Jeff Bridges created a couple of programs to build a perfectly ordered world in a computer, and got sucked into said computer and trapped once the programs turned on him. Twenty odd years have now passed, and his son figures out how to enter the Tron world. He gets captured, gets in a fight, rides some light cycles, then meets up with his father, and the two of them have to figure out how to get away, along with a new character Quorra who is some kind of new AI life form. But ultimately plot is not this films strong point. And frankly, the characters are total cyphers as well. The rogue programs, Tron and Clue, are simple villains. Jeff Bridges's character is seems more along for the ride than being essentially the wizard of this particular Oz. It's up to the son and Quorra to blandly bland their way through the middle of the film, being totally upstaged by a wildly hamming it up Michael Sheen as a bartender(?) who is trying to be on everybody's side.

I guess the talking point of this film is the 3D, which I avoided, and the computer-generated character Clue, who is a 20 year younger version of Jeff Bridges. He looks a little wooden, but not too bad Unfortunately the rules still holds that the more human a digital character look, the less realistic it looks. The music is very 80's arcade influenced. The visual effects are also quite 80's arcade - ish. I don't know if it's retro stylish, or just out of date. The world of this movie makes no sense. The rules seem to be made up on the spot. The characters are all wierd and shallow. The plot is nonsensical, where the bad guy plots to trap Bridges's son, only to then try and kill him instead of use him to trap Bridges himself. I just can't really see the point of it all, and frankly found myself a bit bored in a coupe of places. It's a digital film badly in need of some analogue soul. Two discs out of five.

- Peace out.

What Does Anyone Know?

2010-12-19T22:23:00.003+12:00

Conditions Warm, Mixed.

Experts

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I don't really trust experts. It seems to me that life throws up so many problems, events and random mutations that anyone offering themselves as an expert about something, anything, is either a fool or a rogue. I guess it's possible to be an expert on things that have a very narrow field. Tiddlywinks perhaps, or pet rock maintenance. But anything living, anything with that extra spark of chaos, forget about it. There's no such thing as an expert. Which is why I had to scoff when, after a series of shark attacks at an Egyptian resort, the experts reacted with shock that such a thing had happened.

Egyptian officials are convinced more than one shark is responsible for a series of gruesome attacks on holidaymakers in Sharm el-Sheikh that has so far left one person dead and four severely injured.

"It is clear now that we're dealing with multiple sharks, and undoubtedly at least one of them is still out there in the water," a senior government official involved with the shark hunt told the Guardian.

The statement contradicts earlier reassurances from the Egyptian authorities that a single shark behaving abnormally lay behind the past week's flurry of attacks on swimmers at the popular Red Sea resort.

The revelation comes as a group of international experts landed in Sinai to begin investigating why the normally placid waters of Sharm el-Sheikh have suddenly become host to a chilling drama that has made headlines around the world and left the town's normally packed beaches virtually deserted at the height of the holiday season.

On Sunday a 70-year-old German tourist died after a shark tore off her arm, less than 24 hours after local officials declared the sea to be safe again following the capture and killing of two sharks, one or other of which was believed to be responsible for earlier attacks on snorkellers. Criticism of the authorities' handling of the case is building, with local dive experts warning that the policy of targeting and eliminating "suspicious" sharks in the area was doomed to fail.

"I have always said that there was no way this could be the work of a single animal," said Amr Aboulfatah, former chairman of the South Sinai Association for Diving and Marine Activities and the owner of a major local dive centre. "You've got more chance of winning the jackpot in Las Vegas than you do of identifying and then capturing a single shark and thus solving the problem."

- guardian.co.uk/

Well if you'll excuse me I think that you've got more chance of capturing the moon with a lasso than ever actually solving the problem. You see, I learned something from the Discovery channel shark week. I started paying attention when an expert was talking about how none of the sharks he was standing next to would do anything, and one promptly tore his leg off. What I learned was that the sea is full of sharks. And sharks are dangerous, unpredictable killing machines. So if you want to go splashing about in the water, you simply need to accept the fact that one may very well try to eat you. Regardless of what the experts may say about water temperature, time of year, feeding patterns, shark species behavior models and odds calculations.

Film Review: Machete

Machete grew out of a fake trailer that played in the middle of the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse film from a few years ago, and got such a good reaction from the crowd that Rodriguez had to end up making it as a film in it's own right. As such, it is a film with it's tongue firmly in it's cheek from the very start. But for a film that is essentially winking at you with both eyes, it's gathered a pretty great cast. Robert Deniro as a corrupt politician, Jessica Alba as an immigration cop, Michelle Rodriguez as a revolutionary, Cheech Marin as a priest. And hey there's Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey, and cameos by Lindsay Lohan and Steven Segal! A lot of the quality of this film comes from the cast.

In the lead role is the rugged Danny Trejo, forever the tough guy finally being given the top billing. He's the monosyllabic Machete Cortez, former honest Mexican Agent turned illegal immigrant day-laborer, hired to assassinate a slimy politician but is actually being setup to take the fall. It's up to Machete to figure out who set him up and why, while staying one step ahead of the cops and the anti-immigration vigilante army. The film turns steadily into a confrontation between the armed redneck border patrol and the illegal immigrants working in today's society.

Despite the political overtones Robert Rodriguez is able to keep a light fun tone to the film, coming up with violent action sequences and fun characters to keep things ticking along. There's lots of nudity and blood, and at the end Stevel Segal shows up to get killed. I'm not entirely sure Steven is in on the joke, but the way the film has been constructed it doesn't really matter if he gets it or not. This is just a fun ride, with a few political points to make, and some cool stuff to watch. Three blood spatters out of Five.

- Peace out

Intimate But Not Personal

2010-11-28T10:04:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Stuffy

Fly The Too-Friendly Skies

Who would have thought that we'd get to the point where in order to travel on a plane you would either have to get a full naked picture of yourself taken, or get an extremely intimate frisking from security personnel? At least we're still allowed to choose which type of humiliation we will be subjected to.

So the focus naturally turns to: are these scanners safe to use? The answer from a medical website may surprise you.

It shouldn't, though.

Being scanned at an airport by a body scanner emits such a tiny amount of radiation, that there is no threat to health, as long as the machine is working properly, Peter Rez, Professor of Physics, Arizona State University says.

The chances of receiving a life-threatening cancer are approximately 1 in 30 million, Rez added. Compare that to a 1 in 5 million risk of being struck by lightning. Manufacturers say the radiation dose is one-thousandth of what one would receive during a dental x-ray.

These figures only refer to devices that are working properly and do not jam. Jamming is possible, during which a radiation dose can shoot up, Prof. Rez explained.

Even though body scanners have a safety mechanism that should shut off the machine if anything goes wrong, there is no guarantee that mechanism won't fail.

- medicalnewstoday.com/

Okay, 1 in 30 million chance of getting cancer from Dr Rez there. Sounds like fairly low odds, thanks Doctor. Assuming the machines don't malfunction (and we all know how safe and reliable mass-transit mechanical devices are, right?) then it would seem fairly safe. But wait there's more:

CONTROVERSIAL full-body airport scanners are just as likely to kill you as a terrorist's bomb exploding on your plane, a leading scientist says.

Peter Rez, a physics professor at Arizona State University, US, said the probability of dying from cancer caused by radiation from a body scanner and that of being killed in a terror attack are both approximately one in 30 million.

The risk is less than that of being killed by a lightning strike.

Dr Rez argues that it doesn’t make sense to deploy the scanners based on such low odds.

“The probability is about the same as the thing you are trying to prevent," Dr Rez said.

"So my view is there is not a case to be made for deploying them to prevent such a low probability event."

Dr Rez said that what most concerns him about the machines is that a potential malfunction could increase the radiation dose.

- news.com.au/

Oho, so the good doctor had more to say on the subject. Since the odds of a terrorist attack are roughly the same as the odds of getting cancer, then exactly why are we going to all this expense and trouble?

I'm glad you asked. People are sheep, and sheep panic easily. Therefore anything that can be done that will be seen to be making things safer, will therefore be done. And to hell with logic. Happy flying.

Film Review: Gamer

In the genre I like to call The Twisted Mirror, there are many contenders to the throne. The king of them all is of course The Running Man, a brilliant piece of entertaining satire starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But every few years a new knock-off comes along, trotting out the old setup and invariably including a new twist of some kind. Gamer is the latest contestant, starring Gerard Butler it portrays a world in which video games as we know them have changed to the point where people sit on their couches and control other people. Michael C Hall, playing a brilliant fruit-loop of a tycoon, has created a technology that allows the brain of a person to be taken over by a controller. You know, for fun. At first he creates a game where people just run around maniacally, sort of like Facebook but with a lot more groping. Eventually however the Government is persuaded to allow the technology to be used on convicted killers on death row, and Slayers is born. A game where real people are piloted around like drones, shooting the crap out of each other. If you survive 30 games you get a pardon.

Gerard Butler plays Kable, the toughest, meanest one of 'em all. Because he's up to game 28 he's also become very famous around the world, and something of a problem for Hall, who does not want to let him go free. Because once Kable had a life, and a family, and was setup in order to get Slayers working in the first place, and the last thing Hall wants is for Kable to get out and tell his story. So it's up to a rag tag bunch of hackers, and the kid who 'controls' him, to try and get him out of the game. The setup of the film is a bit weak, focusing just on the fighters and the one actual gamer we see, and lacking any social perspective crucial for this kind of film. The real problem with this though is in the execution. A lot of it looks like it was shot with hand held cameras, and the picture shakes around something terrible. This is annoying enough, but when the action that is going on behind the shaking seems totally random, not to mention disconnected from society (we never really know if anyone not in the games even cares about all this), the film has not really exploited the idea far enough.

Of course there's a lot of violence and death, and a maniacal plan to take over the world, and even a happy ending. But it all seems too easy, too simple, too restricted. Gerard is trying his best, but when you're cast as a monosyllabic killing machine who's controlled by some 15 year old from a couch, what can you really do except variations on anger, rage, frustration, more anger. It's not a smart film - perhaps because Gaming isn't really all that interesting as a spectator sport, or intellectual as a subject. Perhaps it'd work if we were controlling the characters ourselves, but we're not, so we need them to be more than puppets. The subtle yet glaring differences between stories and games. One Gib out of Five.

- Peace out

The Horror, The Horror

2010-11-14T21:12:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Frantically Calm

Because Google Told Me To.

Fun story popped up in the news this week regarding two warring nations, the disputed border between them, and a plucky little computer company both sides decided to put too much trust in. And what happens when we rely too much on our technology? It starts taking over.

A Google Maps line in the wrong place has inflamed a 160-year-old border dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and sent the head of the Organization of American States into a flurry of shuttle diplomacy.

Over the last several days:

• President Laura Chinchilla has appeared on national television urging Costa Ricans to remain calm.

• Google has apologized for its map and blamed the U.S. State Department, then released a statement saying: “By no means should they be used as a reference to decide military actions between two countries.”

• An adviser to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Miguel D’Escoto, has warned via the English-language Nica Times: “I have no doubt the U.S.’s hand is in this.”

- thestar.com/news/

Wherever Skynet is right now, I bet it’s grinning into its pint of bitter.

Film Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife

I must say, all those many years ago as I sat and watched the credits roll up at the end of the first Resident Evil film, I never could of imagined that we'd be here, at number four in the R.E franchise. A franchise built out of nothing but the building blocks of Zombies and the delectable Milla Jovovich. Even the Zombie apocalypse wasn't enough to knock the fight out of this monster, and so here we are, with yet another bunch of desperate survivors surrounded by yet another army of undead, who are yet again joined by Alice, this time flying in on an ancient airplane.

You may care, or likely not care, that the previous film had established an army of Alices, and the Queen Alice herself had become some kind of Neo of the Zombie-trix. Well anyway, those details are cleared away in the opening ten minutes, allowing us to revert to a simpler time, when a Resident Evil movie was about people cowering behind walls, surrounded by zombies. And really, that's that. Alice and, for some reason, Sarah from the last film, team up to try and help the rag tag group escape their fortress to a ship spotted in the harbour. Will they all get to safety, or will they be horribly killed off one by one? Are you kidding me?

The film, directed by the original's Paul W.S Anderson, has benefited mightily from two things: The Matrix movies, from which much has been borrowed, if not outright stolen, and 3D technology. Now I did not see this in the third dimension, because 3D is for suckers, but I must say this is one of the most stylish films I've seen in a long time. If nothing else, 3D technology has forced directors to properly shoot movies again, and this one looks gorgeous. It is such a triumph of style over substance that the many, many plot holes, logic gaps, and sheer stupidity on display kind of merges into the background, and you just find yourself marveling at a scene where water cascades down over our heroes like rain in gorgeous slow motion while they fight some giant monster-zombie who wields an axe the approximate size of a telephone pole. It's beautiful. Stupid, but beautiful. Three coins out of Five.

- Peace out

Here We Go Again

2010-11-07T20:46:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Very nice

Revenge

Now that the American voting public, in all their wisdom, have voted the Republicans back into control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans are quickly looking to re-establish themselves on the scene. Target number one: Obama's health-care package that was (just) put together thanks to the slim majority the Democrats had at the time.

Washington - In a symbolic show of opposition, resurgent House Republicans are eyeing an early up-or-down vote to repeal the Obama administration's health care overhaul, though a successful overturn of the controversial measure is well beyond their reach.

Even if a proposal passes the soon-to-be GOP-controlled House of Representatives, it's unlikely to go any further, considering the Democrats' control of the Senate and President Barack Obama's power to veto legislation.

But with many of the law's provisions years away from implementation, the GOP can use its new House majority to slow the measure's funding and progress through a gantlet of congressional hearings, investigations, aggressive oversight and legislative delays. A conservative commentator called the guerrilla warfare-like tactic "defund, delay and debunk."

The real value of the House vote is to show disgruntled voters that GOP lawmakers haven't conceded defeat on the president's signature domestic-policy triumph, said James Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

But of course with a democratic president still in place the Republicans cannot kill the bill, yet. But 2012 is just around the corner, and you know the Republicans love playing the long game.

Tevi Troy, a Republican health strategist and visiting senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, cautioned eager Republicans against changing many unpopular portions of the law. He said the revisions would make the measure more palatable to the public and consequently dampen desire to see the law overturned in 2012.

Capretta said Republicans should resist the temptation to go it alone on opposing the health law. He urged them to court centrist and conservative Democrats who could be vulnerable in the 2012 elections.

- truth-out.org/

So here we go again, the Republicans are using a big controversial and complicated thing to position themselves as the father of the nation, who will take care of everything once they're back in power again. Almost has a sad sense of inevitability about it.

Film Review: RED

Which stands for Retired and Extremely Dangerous. RED is an old fashioned kind of comedy action film about old retired CIA agents who have to come out of retirement because the CIA is trying to kill them. It's headed by Bruce Willis, and also stars Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren. I was a little concerned this was going to be another sad-Willis film like, you know, all his recent movies. And to a certain extent it is. I mean, this one is a lot more fun than most of Willis's movies of the past decade, but it still features him as the straight man of the movie, one that everyone else gets to riff off of. I miss that zany Willis who laughed at his own jokes.

But despite that it does turn into a very fun ride, breathlessly racing from location to location. The heart of the film is the burgeoning romance between Willis and Mary Louise Parker, a phone operator for the pension plan Willis was signed up to. Naturally she is dragged into all the chaos. An interesting twist the the Karl Urban character, the CIA operative charged with killing the retired ones. He actually comes across as more of a human being as the film goes along, and the fight sequence he has with Willis in the middle of the film is just awesome. And there is a plot to uncover, lest you think it's all just shootouts and one liners.

So what is this film. It's funny, it's fairly brutal, it's sweet and interesting. It also features Helen Mirren firing a gigantic field gun at a squad of secret service men, and a cameo from Ernest Borgnine. It's actually directed pretty well too, with no throwaway shaky cam garbage at all, and characters you can actually care about. All in all a fun time at the movies. Four pigs out of Five.

- Peace out

Dogs Are Barking

2010-10-31T09:11:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Relentlessly Overcast

Woof.

If Jean Claude Van Damme has taught us anything, other than that being able to do the splits does not make you look cool, it's that when traveling through time you have to be very very careful not to do anything that might affect future events. A lesson that apparently was not passed on to a certain someone who has been spotted ...in a documentary filmed in the 20's for a Charlie Chaplin movie while seemingly talking on a cell phone.

George Clarke from east Belfast has been puzzled for more than a year by a scene in a film which appears to show a woman talking on a mobile phone.

The unusual thing is that the movie was made by Charlie Chaplin in 1928 - long before mobile phones were invented.

In the eight days since George posted the clip on Youtube - more than 1.5m people have viewed the video online.

- bbc.co.uk/news/

I know, it sounds outrageous, especially due to the not unimportant point that time travel is impossible. But you cannot argue with the fact that the person in the movie is clearly talking while holding a thing against their ear. And as we have all been conditioned to recognise over the last decade, anything a person holds to their ear while speaking is a cellphone. Simple.

You tube clip is here

Film Review: The Town

Ben Affleck directs and stars in The Town, a gritty heist movie about a team of professional bank robbers in Boston. Ben plays essentially the good-hearted bad guy, who wants to go straight but is trapped in this world of guns and money. When he falls in love with a kidnap victim of their last heist, things start to wind out of control. In terms of heist movies that have gone before, there really isn't anything new here. Affleck directs a fairly straight forward film where the stakes gradually get raised with the FBI hot on their heels. The difference really comes in that the ending isn't as bleak as I thought it would be.

It's still fairly bleak, but all things considered, it could have been much worse. Which applies to the whole film as well. Affleck seems to have found an actual director deep down inside, and aside from some occasional odd editing choices shows some good skill at putting scenes together. And acting wise he's putting on a damn good performance as well, trying to desperately find a way out of the life he's built for himself when he finally gets a glimpse of something better.

The film is fairly grungy, however. Boston comes across as a cheap, nasty downtrodden place to live, where everyone can't wait to get the hell out. And lets not forget the overall theme of the movie, something I feel is getting a little lost in all the Affleck praise. This film is about a bank robber, trying to get away with it. Things get out of control, people get hurt and killed. Exactly how is Affleck the good guy in any of this? Well he isn't. It's just the nice smile and big chin that makes the audience want him to be the good guy. So, a nice try. Three twangy accents out of five.

- Peace out

Not Getting It

2010-10-10T08:49:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Cold

I Demand An Upgrade!

People are getting more and more intolerant of life's little setbacks, I feel. Example A this week is of a man in an economy seat on a Qantas flight, who decided he wasn't going to take any more.

"The 23-year-old Israeli male passenger, surnamed Ariel, became 'emotional' after complaining about the food and other services," a police spokesman said.

There were reports today the man complained about his seat in economy class.

"He asked to be moved to business class because he wasn't happy with sitting in economy," a passenger, David Peace, told News Ltd.

He then asked to be seated with the pilot on the flight deck, Mr Peace said.

"When that was refused, he said he was going to open the door and get off," he said.

Police said they would not charge the man as he did not cause any damage or harm other passengers.
[...]

The man was understood to have ignored a number of directions from the crew and was sectioned off from other passengers under staff guard until the end of the flight.

He was not violent and no passengers were reported to be harmed.

- smh.com.au/

We've all been there, stuck in a difficult crappy situation for a long period of time. It's tough, I know. But sometimes we just have to keep our cool in the face of unfairness instead of blowing our stacks. Because where's that going to get you other than dumped at the next stop?

Film Review: The Last Airbender

Adaptations can be very difficult to pull off effectively. Distilling the essence of a longer body of work into a 2 hour film requires a bit of skill in knowing what to cut and what to change. And so it is that an adaptation has the added risk of not only being bad, but also being offensive to people who are fans of the source material. I was a big fan of the Nickelodeon show that ran for three seasons and is the basis for this movie, the first of three. Set in a world made up of four nations, where each nation has people capable of manipulating, or "bending" a natural element - Earth, Air, Fire, Water, the new Avatar - the only one who can bend all four elements and is meant to keep the peace - has awoken after being missing, frozen in ice for a hundred years. In his absence the Fire nation has launched a campaign to take over the world.

Prince Zuko, the banished and scarred Fire nation prince, is tasked with chasing after the Avatar. And helping the Avatar are the two kids from the Water nation who found him and will help him travel to the North pole, on his flying bison. in order to learn water bending with the goal of eventually taking on the Fire Lord. Now, this is a lot to explain, and a lot to process. So it should not be that surprising that M Night Shymalan's movie adaptation feels a little rushed, and a little lacking in detail. The characters and the world are introduced very quickly, and the actual process of getting to the North pole, evading Zuko and another Fire nation general, and having the Avatar deal with being away for so long is all compressed down into a too-short period of time. Crucial character moments where the Avatar and Sokka and Katara grow and learn and adapt to their mission are really not given enough time to register.

Predictably, what is given plenty of time is the action sequences where people battle by using Kung Fu moves to hurl the elements at each other. And while these CG effects are pretty good, there seems to be more of a disconnect between the character and the elements than there was in the cartoon. Shymalan's directing choices are also unusual. He does not shake the camera, and I profoundly thank him for that, but in action sequences he wants to move the camera around the characters as they fight each other, which on paper sounds pretty cool. But what I noticed was that it seemed as though the actors had to wait for the camera to get into position before they could make their moves, which seemed awkward and jarring. In the end the essence of the show is there in the movie, but the missing details make it a much more shallow of an experience that it should have been. Two water whips out of five.

- Peace out

Nothing Up My Sleeve

2010-09-26T22:16:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Glorious

Provocation

It seems to me that the biggest problem Iran has in their standoff with the West is Ahmadinejad himself. Speaking at the U.N last week:

The Iranian president said there was a theory that "some segments within the US government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East, in order also to save the Zionist regime.

"The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view," he declared to the astonished chamber.
[...]

The United States led an enraged Western walkout after Ahmadinejad's comments on the Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, which was just four miles (six kilometers) from the UN headquarters. European Union delegations quickly followed and Canada boycotted the speech even before it started.

- google.com/

Now this is just flat-out stupid. And it makes dealings with Iran that much more difficult when their leader is making such stupid and provocative statements. And it wasn't the only stupid thing he's said while in New York.

(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of hypocrisy on Friday for criticizing the death sentence of an Iranian woman, while a woman was executed in the United States this week.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted of adultery, but Iranian officials earlier this month suspended her execution by stoning after weeks of condemnation from around the world.

In the United States, Teresa Lewis, 41, was convicted of orchestrating the murders of her husband and stepson and died on Thursday by lethal injection in the state of Virginia. It was the first execution of a woman in the United States in five years.

Ahmadinejad told a news conference in New York, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, that the Iranian woman was accused of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband and that the case was still before the courts.

- reuters.com/

See the issue here is not that a woman has been sentenced to death (although that is a big damn deal in itself), the issue is about how the country carries out it's justice. America may be brutal in it's justice, but it is at least clinical in it's procedure. While you can compare sentencing a woman to death for murder, you can't really compare stoning to death with a lethal injection.

I can't really think that Ahmadinejad doesn't know that, in the same sense that I can't really think that Ahmadinejad believes 9/11 was an inside job. So I have to suspect that the man is acting more as a provocateur than anything else, willing to make outlandish claims in order to try and take control of the press, a press that has become more and more critical of his leadership, a press that is seeping more and more onto Iranian televisions and newspapers. What is the long game here? What is really going on?

- Peace out

Open The Gates

2010-09-19T11:37:00.001+12:00

Conditions: All Shook Up

Enemies Become Allies

Not so long ago, the prospect of the Intercontinental Missile Shield was driving a wedge between relations between Nato and Russia. Russia was increasingly being portrayed as the bad guys, and various old Cold War scenarios were being shaken out and dusted off. But the threat of resumption has faded away, with some simple diplomacy and cooperation. Now we see that the Missile Defense plan could actually be used to strengthen ties between Moscow and the West, due to the powers that be wanting to invite Russia in under the umbrella.

Rasmussen (NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen) invited Russia on Wednesday to hold talks with the 28 NATO states at an alliance summit in November at which he wants the Western allies to agree to link existing missile defense systems and to formally invite Moscow to participate.

Moscow has been cautious about the plan, even though NATO has said the defense system is designed as protection against a perceived threat from Iran, not Russia.

"Progress in missile defense can create a better climate for progress in other areas critical to European security, including when it comes to conventional weapons," Rasmussen will say in his speech, according to a draft seen by Reuters.

"If we build missile defenses in Europe outside of a NATO framework, and without a clear offer to Russia, it will create new dividing lines, between who is in and who is out."

He will argue that Russian involvement in the missile defense system could "reinforce a virtuous circle" -- not only creating conditions for conventional arms control but diminishing the perceived need to rely on nuclear protection.

"If Russia and other countries feel like they are inside the tent with the rest of us, rather than outside the tent looking in, it will build trust ... Controls on conventional weapons make it easier to contemplate diminishing reliance on nukes."

- reuters.com/

See, finally some simple logic at work. By building a fence we demarcate sides, and create a rivalry. If instead we cooperate on fence building we end up building a community. Let's see if we can expand this philosophy outward.

See, currently the "threat" is Iran, and it's perceived missile systems. And so a fence made of economic restrictions, embargoes and military buildup has been slowly constructed around the nation. The natural response to this is hostility, ensuring that Iran probably is looking into building a Nuclear missile or two, likely because of the threat they perceive to themselves due to everyone thinking of them as a threat.

But what if we did the same thing with Iran that we did with Russia? What if we went to Iran and said we were worried about Pakistan, or North Korea, or Mars for that matter, and therefore wanted Iran to actually participate in the Missile Defense system?

Suddenly you have the potential for cooperation on the table. Suddenly there's the possibility of getting everyone to work together and maybe getting rid of some of the tension that's been building up. This is how you ease tensions, not by pointing bigger and bigger weapons at each other, but by finding something else you can both point your weapons at.

Film Review: The Expendables.

Sylvester Stallone directs a throwback to the Eighties, where a bunch of classic B-movie actors are teamed up as mercenaries charged with taking on a small army belonging to a dictator of some third-world island, in order to save the people from tyranny, and the dictator's daughter from torture and death.

Remarkably for a film that is all about guns and action, the two highlights of this film are dialog scenes. One a tense yet amusing argument in a church involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Stallone, and another quiet scene where Mickey Rourke talks about regret and the soul of a mercenary. But with those aside, this film is as shallow as they come. When Stallone decided to make this 80's throwback, one would have thought there would have been a lot of determination to make it really mean something. But sadly, it just plays out about as simple and obvious as it could have been.

The bad guys are bad, the good guys are good, except for one who goes both ways, but that's apparently OK as well. The characters get along with each not because they really want to, but because the script tells them too. The chemistry is lacking. And while the action is suitably violent, it's also difficult to follow in places. Stallone disappointingly wants to shake the camera around a bit, which really doesn't help matters at all. Ultimately it was probably a better idea to let the old legends lie. Three Shells out of Five.

- Peace out

The Choices Unseen

2010-08-29T22:04:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Rainy.

Wakka Wakka

A couple of years ago there was a lot of concern over voting machines in America being vulnerable to attack and therefore democracy itself being in danger of total irrelevance. Then Obama was elected and so everyone stopped caring. But they shouldn't, thanks to a recent experiment carried out by a bunch of hackers. What did they do? They managed to put the game Pac-man onto one of these voting machines without breaking any of the tamper-proof seals.

"We received the machine with the original tamper-evident seals intact," the hackers from Princeton and University of Michigan report. "The software can be replaced without breaking any of these seals, simply by removing screws and opening the case."

This particular Sequoia DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machine model is known as the AVC Edge. It used to be described on the Sequoia website and promotional materials as "tamperproof". It has been hacked previously and has failed time and again in recent elections, even though election officials continue to force voters to use them.

I really don't understand two things about this whole thing. The first is that the Government decided that the only way for electronic voting to work was by people pressing buttons and having the votes go into a database that is then transmitted to the central computer. This is just flat out stupid - having the results get transmitted electronically to any location is creating a huge vulnerability. What makes so much more sense is to have the machine spit out a paper ballot, then have the ballot be counted/collated as per normal.

The other thing I don't understand is how, despite these things clearly having been shown to be not only vulnerable, but downright open to abuse, the American public hasn't risen up and set the damn things on fire. Isn't it written down somewhere that if the government isn't doing things right then the people are supposed to take back control?

Short of adding "tamper-evident" seals to these machines --- the same seals that went undisturbed when Pac-Man was hacked onto the Sequoia AVC Edge machine --- very little has changed since 2006, and most of the same hackable (and often 100% unverifiable) electronic voting systems are still in use today, in both primary elections this year (such as the one where the unknown, unemployed campaign-less Alvin Greene was said to have defeated the four-term state legislator and circuit court Judge Vic Rawl for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination), as well as in the general elections this November.

- truth-out.org/

So sadly we have to conclude that not only is the physical infrastructure of Democracy in America under threat, but it's throbbing heart seems to be in great stress as well.

Film Review: Salt

You know, Paul Greengrass has a lot to answer for, I think, when it comes to the Spy Thriller genre. Bringing his shaky-camera tricks to the second and third Bourne movies (and having them inexplicably so well received by the public) really established this benchmark that every Spy thriller had to be furiously-paced, and bordering on the incoherent. Salt stars Angelina Jolie as a CIA operative who's accused of being a Russian spy, and embarks on a crazy escapade that concerns the presidents of Russia and America, and the brink of World War three.

The classic cold-war ideas of sleeper agents and nuclear brinkmanship are wheeled out again for a fresh airing, but the real star of the show is Angelina Jolie, who simply overrides shoddiness in plot logic or direction with sheer aggression and determination. Salt is as much about what an actor can bring to a role as it is about crazy stunts and shocking twists. It's great to see female actors cutting loose in what would be a traditional male role (apparently written for Tom Cruise) and being totally believable in it.

You have to go a long way in today's spy thriller movie genre to be really impressive, and while this film isn't hugely impressive, it is at least entertaining thanks to Ms Jolie. Sure, there's a complex plot and a couple of daring twists, but it's characters that drive a film, any film, and Salt unfortunately remains a very closed-off character lost in a plot that frankly makes no sense whatsoever. We know why she ends up doing what she does, but it's not easy, or perhaps not allowed, to know how she's feeling about it. And so it goes. Three Sleepers out of Five.

- Peace Out

Whimper

2010-08-22T16:39:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Cold, still

The End

After all these years, the end has apparently finally come. The Iraq war, the war that will define for our generation as the moment that we threw off the mistakes of our fathers and chose to make our own mistakes, all over again, is finally coming to an end. Or at least, coming to the part where the troops start pulling out.

BAGHDAD: Iraqis danced in the streets when US troops withdrew from their cities a little more than a year ago. After the last American combat brigade trundled across the border into Kuwait on Thursday, reversing a journey that began more than seven years ago, there was no rejoicing.

Instead, a mood of deep apprehension tinged with bitterness is taking hold as Iraqis digest the reality that the American invaders who they once feared would stay forever are in fact going home - at a time when their country is in the throes of a political crisis that many think could become more violent.
[...]

US combat operations in Iraq will not officially end until August 31, the deadline set by Barack Obama for the reduction of the force to 50,000 people involved in ''stability operations''.

But with the departure to Kuwait of the last combat brigade, the formal battle mission is essentially over. In the coming days, 2000 more personnel from units scattered around the country will leave, bringing the number remaining down to the 50,000 promised by the President.
[...]

But many Iraqis worry that the time is wrong for a drawdown whose date was a result of Mr Obama's campaign promise to bring troops home. Parliamentary elections in March that were supposed to cement Iraq's fledgling democracy have instead triggered a destabilising political stand-off between ethnic-tinged factions that received roughly similar numbers of votes and cannot agree on who should be in charge.

Call me old fashioned, but I do believe in the principle that if you break it, you buy it. This was one of the principles held over the long-departed Bush regime at the dawn of the Iraq war, and here we are seven years later. Lets not forget the simple point that Iraq hadn't actually done anything to justify the invasion and subsequent slaughter. So is Iraq still broken? Or has it gotten to the point where we don't really remember the difference?

A rash of attacks on judges, traffic police, senior civil servants and members of the Iraqi security forces has stirred fears that insurgents are more ubiquitous than had been thought. A suicide bombing in Baghdad against army recruits on Tuesday, in which 63 people died, called into question the Iraqi security forces' ability to take care of its own, let alone the safety of ordinary citizens.

- smh.com.au/

Maybe the key is to trash the entire store, that way you can break whatever you want and no one can tell the difference.

Sadly, I don't believe anything will really come of all this mass stupidity and carnage. The architects have already long ago received their rewards and scuttled away out of the limelight. All that's left is the wreckage, which inevitably over time (approximately seven years of time) molds itself into the background clutter and becomes scenery.

So all that's left is the tradiional declaration of victory, the speeches about hope, and the distribution of medals. I guess it's now mostly in the hands of the historians. God help us all.

More:
Five Myths about Iraq troop withdrawal

- Peace out

Got Hypocrisy?

2010-08-08T10:24:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Wet

Standing (Hopefully) Awkwardly

It seems every week there's a commemoration of something horrible, and this week it's the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima, the event that most history books seem to think ended the second world war. This year there's a subtle difference in the normal proceedings

The US ambassador to Japan, John Roos, today became the first US representative to attend an annual ceremony to honour the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Roos's presence at an event to mark 65 years since a US bomb left Hiroshima in ruins has raised hopes that president Barack Obama will visit the city when he attends a meeting of Apec leaders in Japan in November.

It seems there's very little in the world that the Americans can be shut out of for very long, and I for one get a weird drunk-driver-attending-victims-funeral kind of vibe when I read about this.

The mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, welcomed Washington's decision to send Roos, after it had previously turned down invitations to mark the moment a B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the city on the morning of 6 August 1945.

"We need to communicate to every corner of the globe the intense yearning of the survivors for the abolition of nuclear weapons," Akiba said. "I offer my prayers to those who died. We will not make you wait for much longer [for nuclear disarmament]."

And that's a good point, but in pursuit of a fruitless goal. In reality, no obe is ever going to completely disarm their nuclear arsenals. Not the U.S, not Russia, not Israel, not India or Pakistan, not even the secret Atlantean deep sea research facility. It's not going to happen. So if that was what the invite was for, then I think all that uncomfortableness you and Roos must have had to endure during the event was all for nothing.

Conservatives in the US have criticised the decision to send Roos, saying it would be misinterpreted as an act of contrition. The son of a member of the Enola Gay crew said the ambassador's visit to Hiroshima amounted to an "unspoken apology".

Gene Tibbets, whose deceased father, Brig Gen Paul Tibbets, piloted the bomber, told Fox News: "It's making the Japanese look like they're the poor people, like they didn't do anything. They hit Pearl Harbor, they struck us. We didn't slaughter the Japanese. We stopped the war."

- guardian.co.uk/

And then of course there's the peanut gallery, where anything that is not full and total America The Beautiful is seen as traitorous and evil.

So Much For Tolerance

Another big story this week is the horror being expressed in America over the news that a Mosque is going to be built on Ground Zero, home of the 9/11 attack. Well, not on Ground Zero, more like a few blocks away from it. But still. The horror.

To critics, the centre's proximity to the site of the atrocity would be an affront to the dead and to the feelings of families and firefighting colleagues who have survived them.

Some relatives have said that a building representative of the religion in whose name their loved ones were killed is too painful to countenance.

The Anti-Defamation League, a venerable Jewish civil rights group, came out against, arguing that "this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right".

In a Quinnipiac University poll, a narrow majority of New Yorkers disapproved of the plan, though a majority of Manhattans approved.

- telegraph.co.uk/

I'm pretty sure Americans understand Irony, but maybe the stakes here are too high for that kind of subtlety to penetrate. That it's ok for America, which really did unnecessarily drop two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, to officially attend ceremonies for the victims while it's totally wrong for a Mosque to be built in a city for a religion that was not responsible for an attack in that same city, is something that I'm sure passes completely over the heads of most of these angry protesters. How fun it is to be the crusader.

- More: Zakaria returns ADL award

- Peace out

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily.

2010-07-31T22:29:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Somewhat Warmer

The End Is Nigh

One more reason to hate smart phones, other than because they are stupid, and make people who use them stupid, and possibly maybe cause head cancer, and are slowly dividing the world into people-sized boxes, is that they're also going to destroy the internet as we know it.

The world will run out of internet IP addresses in less than a year because of the explosion in smart phones, experts have warned.

Inaction by internet providers could lead to broken applications and more expensive net connections.

IP addresses do not refer to website domain names, but the unique sequence of numbers used to identify each computer, website or other internet-connected device.

The protocol used by the majority of web users, known as IPv4, provides only about four billion IP addresses.

Currently there are only about 232 million IP addresses left which is enough for about 340 days only, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

- news.sky.com/

A new protocol has already been developed that will allow for everyone in the world to have four billion addresses each, which I judge should be about enough. Maybe. I mean, we may have to cut back on how many desklamps we want to have connected online, but yeah, cross that bridge when we download it. Anyway, the problem with a new protocol is that every single thing that connects to the web will need to be reconfigured. And that is one Great Big Giant Headache.

So thank you, smart phones, for causing so many, many problems, in the cause of allowing people to always be able to annoy each other.

Film Review: Knight And Day

Sometimes a film can really just sweep you away with a handful of charisma and some old fashioned fun. Knight And Day is basically a Comedic Action Movie with Cameron Diaz playing a classic car restorer who gets swept into a crazy chase with Tom Cruise who's playing a secret agent. Chemistry sparks, and before you know it we're off on a James-Bondian themed romp that revolves around a battery that never runs out of power. But what the film is really about is these two characters, June and Roy who both find themselves and each other, at about the same time.

There's definitely some cheesy moments, but Tom Cruise can be so damned charming that you simply ignore any potential hiccups and enjoy the ride. And I must say, having Cameron Diaz become more pro active as the film moved along was quite a good idea. These two do make a believable and fun couple, which is a vital part of why this film works as well as it does.

It's also well shot, with some great stunts and action sequences, and no shaky camera to be found. Kudos on that. Director James Mangold has found just the right kind of tone for this film. This is kind of an old fashioned tale full of charming people and fun stunts, and it's really nice to see that when this is done well, it can still work. Three and a half mags out of Five.

Film Review: Inception.

I've always felt that you could look at movies as a collective dream shared by the audience. So movies that in themselves are about dreams are always a little bit more special, and perhaps a bit more complicated, than more regular films. Inception takes this idea right to the very edge by offering up a world where industrial espionage takes place inside people's dreams, where an operative can find out sensitive information by invading the mind of a C.E.O while he's asleep. The twist is that this movie isn't actually about stealing ideas, it's about being able to plant one.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a veteran of this kind of thing who is trying to do the "one final job" that will allow him to go home. His problem is that his guilt-infused projection of his deceased wide keeps showing up in his dream scape, which means he's become a danger to the other members of the team. And it's that aspect to this film that elevates it to a whole new level. Dreams within dreams, time dilation and questioning of reality are big big themes in this film, and it's such a pleasure to have a film address big ideas in a very complex and adult fashion. There is no pandering here, the ideas are fired straight at you, and it's up to audience to try and keep up. This is something Director Christopher Nolan does with his films, and I have to say I like it. I like a movie that challenges it's audience, far too many of them coddle and over-simplify in fear of leaving someone behind. This film doesn't care if you get left behind or not, it's has a story to tell, so you better keep up.

The technology being used is both complicated, simple, and essentially left to the audience to figure out. A briefcase-sized device is used to jack in to a sleeping person, via a series of cables the "intruders" attach to their wrists. What's refreshing here is that the actual technology is essentially ignored. Nolan realizes what's important, and focuses completely on that: It's the characters that completely drive this film, not the technology, and that's a great choice. And as the film reaches it's finale, you realize that amid all the gunfire and car chases, that what is actually driving this film to a conclusion is not an action sequence, or even a series of interlinked action sequences, but the emotional catharsis of the lead character.

This is an amazing achievement, truly a brilliant film made by a daring filmmaker fully at the top of his game, shot and scored with absolute skill, and acted out by a bunch of brilliant actors who are perfectly cast. And the greatest gift this film gives is its final few moments that will resonate and allow you to question everything. Superb. Five kicks out of five.

- Peace out

Can't Go Home Again

2010-07-18T01:13:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Bloody Freezing

Plugging the Leak

In the wake of the latest news from the Gulf of Mexico is an announcement that another kind of leak has also been plugged. This time on Wall street, home of the really big disasters.

The US Senate passed the biggest overhaul of financial-industry regulation since the Great Depression, sending a bill inspired by the 2008 credit crisis to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature.

Senators voted 60-39 yesterday in favour of the top-to-bottom rewrite of rules governing Wall St firms, ending a year of partisan wrangling over protections for consumers and investors.
[...]

The bill will create a mechanism for liquidating failing financial firms whose collapse could roil markets, a council of regulators to police firms for threats to the economic system and a consumer bureau at the Federal Reserve to monitor banks for credit-card and mortgage lending abuses.

So is this really going to work? Will this prevent another blow out? Well let's see what the opposition says:

Most Senate Republicans voted against the measure, saying it doesn't go far enough to prevent future taxpayer-funded bailouts of Wall St firms and creates an unnecessary new bureaucracy in the consumer bureau.

Measured against Wall St excesses that nearly toppled the global financial system two years ago, some analysts saw the bill as tinkering at the edges of banking practices rather than forcing fundamental changes to the industry.

- nzherald.co.nz/

Hmmm, so the overall vibe seems to be that, while a cap has been put in place, we don';t yet really know how strong it is, and how it will standup under pressure. They better keep working on that relief-well then, or what ever the metaphorical equivalent to that is.

Fim Review: Shrek Forever After.

After the surprise hit of the first Shrek, the filmakers responded with a slew of sequels, naturally. What was unnatural, however, was that those sequels were quite different in nature to the first film, which was a fairytale adventure. Despite this, people kept buying tickets, which is how we've ended up with four of them. The latest film is something of a step back in the right direction as it tries to address the problem with this franchise: Shrek being tied down with a family. He wishes for a day when he could go back to being a lone ogre again, and gets his wish by the evil Rumpelstiltskin, who's something of a fast-talking con man and sets up an alternate reality where essentially the first three films didn't happen.

This gives us a plot where the Ogres of the forest are under attack from King Rumpelstiltskin's army, and are being led by fierce warrior-ogre Fiona. Shrek has one night to get Fiona to kiss him or he'll be wiped from existence. Can he do so whist in the middle of a revolution? Well what do you think? You know, probably the most surprising aspect of this film is how short it is. I think it comes out at like 70 minutes or so. And the film feels it, always in a rush to move the plot forward.

There's some laughs, there's some exciting bits, a dance sequence or two, and there's even a bit of the old magic between the old castmates, plus a somewhat interesting plot to follow. Everyone is doing their best. It's no Shrek 1, but then again, what is. Two and a half snappy tunes out of five.

Film Review: Predators

And so after two terrible Alien versus Predator movies, the franchise is rebooted again with Robert Rodriguez overseeing a little-known director named Nimrod Atal to do what is effectively Predator 3. This one is set on another planet, with a group of tough individuals thrown together with a variety of weapons in order to be hunted by a team of three predators. Leading the cast is Adrien Brody, which is the biggest surprise of the entire film, except perhaps for the point that he actually manages to come across fairly well as a mercenary bad ass. This not so merry band of soldiers, convicts, and a "doctor" explore their jungle, and eventually get whittled down by the invisible hunters. But this really is a film that is so busy paying homage to it's predecessors, that it seems to not be able to do anything for itself.

Now, I'm an enormous fan of the first film. In fact, I firmly believe that decades from now it will rightly take it's place alongside Casablanca and Citizen Kane as one of the best films ever made. But a sequel to anything really needs to try and stand on it's own, no matter how daunting the task may be. Predators just doesn't really have enough in it to do that. And the most surprising thing it lacks, is a plot. Sure, you have this idea of a Predator Game Reserve, but that's basically it. The first film had a plot, as did the second. Hell even AvP had a plot. Why they gave up on this one is a bit of a mystery, especially since the film isn't actually that bad.

It's properly R-rated, it's got a reasonably good cast, the effects are pretty good, and of course you have one of the most iconic movie bad guys ever. It's even shot pretty well, no awful shaky cam or bad moments. It's just that at the end of the film, it all kind of falls away. The reason most films work is because you have characters that are trying to do things, and you end up caring for them. In this case, because these characters don't even have names let alone personalities or any kind of drive (other than "want to go home"), you don't really care about them. Or their deaths. Throw in some character decisions that don't make any sense and you end up with a pizza consisting of some good cheese, but no base. Three dots out of five.

- Peace Out

Spin Me Right Round

2010-06-27T10:06:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Lousy

The Internet Kill Switch

The Internet, that interconnected tangle, built to be a network capable of surviving everything but the destruction of the planet - and even then bits and peices may still endure, is apparently according to a new bill going to be hooked up to a self-styled "Kill Switch" under control of the president. Presumably mounted next to the old "Nuke Russia" switch.

As The Hill explains, the bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, and Tom Carper, would give the president "emergency authority to shut down private sector or government networks in the event of a cyber attack capable of causing massive damage or loss of life." The original bill granted the president the authority to "indefinitely" shut down networks, but an amendment to the PCNAA, approved yesterday, mandates that the president "get Congressional approval after controlling a network for 120 days."
[...]

The bill would also see the creation of a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security, the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC). Any private company reliant on "the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. 'information infrastructure'" would be "subject to command" by the NCCC, and some would be required to engage in "information sharing" with the agency, says CBS4.

- huffingtonpost.com/

Frankly I find it as amusing and arrogant as hell that anyone thinks the internet can be taken down. I firmly believe the damn thing will survive the end of the human race and will likely even escape the implosion of the sun in 4 billion years, by exporting crucial functions and infrastructure to passing asteroids. This is what people need to understand: The internet no longer serves us, we serve it. So I suspect that if push comes to shove and the President decides to press the button, you know, to "save" the internet, I'm pretty sure the Internet will just keep on doing what it always does: waiting, colating, and feasting on LOLCats.

Film Review: The A-Team

Even after so many old television shows have been made into films, it's still feels weird to watch Hollywood re-energize something that meant a lot back when I was young, and serve it up to a new audience. The A-Team wasn't artistic or deep, it was simply about a diverse bunch of guys who kept getting into crazy situations together. The new movie just basically takes that and sets it all up again. The characters meet each other, they become the A-Team, and then (eight years later) are framed for a crime they didn't commit. Well, you get the idea.

There's a lot of negative attitude around these kinds of films, with the impression of Hollywood scraping the bottom of the barrel and trampling on some good memories to make a buck. But in reality, if an idea is good enough there isn't really a reason why it cannot be re-invented. Which is why Hamlet will never die. Especially if it can make a buck. So Joe Carnahan has refreshed the old television show, and I have to admit that he's done pretty well. Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith was probably my biggest concern, but he actually pulls it off with style. The rest of the cast is totally solid, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley (!!), and Quinton Jackson all combining together really well as the team of misfits. Jessica Biel rounds things out nicely, but with a role that's a bit lacking in dramatic bite.

It's not high art, but what it is is true to itself. Some good casting and a plot that crackles along, along with a solid amount of action, delivers a film that is exciting and entertaining. It's still weird to see these classic characters wearing new faces, but they are still themselves. The one real complaint I have is Joe's shaking of the camera during the action sequences. Incredibly annoying and frustrating to not be able to clearly see what's happening amid all the gunplay and explosions. Also, I felt the final action sequence was a little too off somehow. At parts kind of random, stagey, and co-incidental. But overall, it's a pretty solid piece of fun. Four cigars out of Five.

- Peace out

Eating The Dust

2010-06-20T10:31:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Overcast

Wave That Magic Wand

Not being able to fully trust your equipment is a problem most soldiers have to deal with out in the field. Rifles misfire, radios break down, the slushy machine goes on the fritz, these are situations that can happen and be dealt with. But this week a story emerged surrounding a particular piece of equipment that's pretty damn amazing.

Police investigating the sale of suspected fake bomb detectors to countries including Iraq have searched premises linked to three businesses.
[...]

A BBC Newsnight investigation alleged that millions of pounds worth of the company's ADE-651 detectors sold to Iraq did not work.

The UK government banned the export of the ADE-651 device to Iraq and Afghanistan earlier this year, saying tests showed the equipment was "not suitable for bomb detection".

There are concerns that the hand-held detectors have failed to stop bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of people.

It has since emerged that other bomb detectors remain on the market.

Now I think we can all agree this is pretty bad. Trying to scan for explosives using faulty equipment is pretty bad, but what's potentially going on here is even worse.

The unit is investigating whether the devices' abilities have been fraudulently misrepresented, and whether sales overseas are linked to bribes.

- news.bbc.co.uk/

Yeeess. Not only do the bomb detectors not work, but they (perhaps) never worked, and (perhaps) were not even meant to work. Now that's a step up, because the implication is that the forces of "evil" somehow fixed it so that the bomb detectors would not detect their bombs. And I think you'll agree that's a bit more that the usual "make a nice profit on the stockmarket." kind of evil that one encounters in the personnel-safety department of the war machine.

War In Search Of A Cause

Usually it works the other way around, but this week we've discovered that Afghanistan, a country that's seemingly been under siege for the course of human history, actually does have something under it worth fighting over.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's untapped mineral wealth is worth at least $3 trillion — triple a U.S. estimate, according to the government's top mining official, who is going to Britain next week to attract investors to mine one of the world's largest iron ore deposits in the war-torn nation.

Geologists have known for decades that Afghanistan has vast deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and other prized minerals, but a U.S. Department of Defense briefing this week put a startling, nearly $1 trillion price tag on the reserves. Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said Thursday that he's seen geological assessments and industry estimates that the minerals are worth at least $3 trillion.

"Afghanistan has huge untapped natural energy and mineral resources which have enormous potential for our economic development," Shahrani said. "Ensuring that this is done in the most transparent and efficient way while delivering the greatest value to the country is a priority of the government."

- google.com

So there you go, dead people, it turns out there was something under there worth fighting to defend|fighting to capture (delete as necessary) after all. Huzzah!

Film Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Time Travel can always be a dangerous element to mess with in a film, because you risk making parts of the film irrelevant by changing the time stream. But I have to say I've never seen a film that uses time travel to render the entire story it's just told as moot. Until now, that is. Prince of Persia is based on a video game, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. And it really shows. It's a mostly-vapid series of fast-cut shots of people with big teeth and long hair jumping through the air and flailing about with swords, no doubt in a desperate attempt to attract the Pirates of the Caribbean crowd.

And in the Johnny Depp swashbuckler role is ...Jake Gyllenhaal? Uh, yeah. And no amount of hair, teeth, muscles or flashing swords can turn him into the kind of tough devil-may-care rogue I suspect he's trying to be. Instead he's kind of an oddball, which is sort-of a new approach to this kind of thing. As part of a raid on an allied city he discovers a dagger that can turn back time. Framed for the murder of his father (the king), he escapes into the desert with Dagger-protector Gemma Arterton, also seeming out-of place here. Anyway, figuring out the conspiracy and showing up at the end to try and stop the past from being undone, they end up basically resetting the entire film.

Which is an odd way of finishing a movie, but I guess in keeping with kind of an odd film. Interesting characters sort of appear and disappear like sandstorms, and the somewhat undisciplined camera work and direction is at odds with the amount of money they must of spent on this thing. It does have style, and a certain amount of charm, but it's also gets a little shallow in places as well. An interesting attempt that needed a more steady approach, I think. Two and a half ostriches out of five.

- Peace out

Having Fun.

2010-05-30T22:37:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Finally Clear.

Potential

With your computer, your phone, and your car all at risk from computer hackers, the next frontier is ...yourself? As medical implant technology gets more complicated, inevitably it also becomes more vulnerable.

Implantable devices, such as pacemakers, defibrillators and cochlear implants, are becoming vulnerable to "infection" with computer viruses, a researcher in England warns.

To prove his point, Mark Gasson, a scientist at the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering, allowed himself to become "Exhibit A."

Gasson said he became the first person in the world to be infected with a computer virus after he "contaminated" a high-end radio frequency identification (RFID) computer chip -- the kind often used as a security tag in stores to prevent theft -- which he had implanted into his left hand.

The point, Gasson explained, was to draw attention to the risks involved with the use of increasingly sophisticated implantable medical device technology.
[...]

But once "infected," the chip disrupted the proper functioning of the mainframe system with which it had been communicating, and would have done the same to any other device that might have been similarly hooked up to the network, he said.

"By infecting my own implant with a computer virus, we have demonstrated how advanced these technologies are becoming and also had a glimpse at the problems of tomorrow," Gasson said.

- businessweek.com/

And what's sad is that in no way will this be seen as a deterrent to anyone. Advanced medical technology is "great". It gives doctors more scope for treatment, and it allows medical tech companies to build shiny things and charge an arm and a leg for them, if you'll pardon the expression. The inherent vulnerabilities will instead become another profit potential for anti-virus companies, keen to profit on the latest digital folly of mankind. Ahhh, capitalism.

Film Review: The Losers.

The most important ingredient a stylish action film must have is, unsurprisingly, style and action. I'm constantly surprised at how many films get that wrong. Happily, The Losers is a film that is concentrating hard on being stylish and exciting right out of the box, and damn me but I think they've pulled it off. This film is fun, well paced and enjoyable. Despite having a number of old movie cliches they have to deal with, they still manage to do something that's feels somewhat fun and fresh, due in no small part to allowing the actors time and scope to actually develop and show off their characters. Amazingly, you actually believe pretty quickly that these guys are a team.

The plot is fairly straight forward, bad guy frames a bunch of good guys, and now they're out to clear their names and get revenge. Throw in some shootouts, some double crosses, a wacky globetrotting villain, and some bonding, and you're done. Well, actually, the villain might be a little too wacky for my taste, shooting people because they dropped an umbrella went out with the eighties. But when the film does stumble, it's able to use it's old fashioned charm to get itself going again.

There is a distasteful amount of shaky cam used during some of the action scenes, which is unfortunate, but at least you can make out enough of what's happening. There's also something of a romantic subplot to take in as well. Zoe Saldana acquits herself well, when she gets half a chance. And while the ending is kind of a shameless attempt to set up a sequel, at least we had fun watching it. Four finger guns out five.

- Peace out

Setting Up The Long Game

2010-05-23T15:30:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold.

Positioning

And what, historically, is the best way to get out of a recession? Jobs? Tax Cuts? No. Selling weapons, of course. And how better to sell weapons, than by talking up threats, and making people scared. Making people scared is big business.

A nuclear-powered Iran, so the argument goes, is a danger to all of these mostly affluent Arab countries, plus nuclear-armed Israel.

But either directly or indirectly, the Iranian threat also has a hidden agenda because it is being implicitly viewed as good for business: the lucrative arms business.

The Western world is unloading some of its most sophisticated weapons - including state-of-the-art fighter planes and anti-missile defence systems - in the Gulf region, clinching multi-billion-dollar arms deals.

According to an analysis by Forecast International Inc. (FI), a leading U.S. defence market research firm, the GCC countries will account for about 60 percent of all defence spending in the region in 2010.

The prediction is that all six Gulf countries will invest over 63 billion dollars toward their armed forces and security this year, with two-thirds of the total coming from Saudi Arabia.

"The GCC members continue to cast a wary eye across the Gulf at Iran," says Dan Darling, FI's military markets analyst for Europe and the Middle East.

Under the perception that Iranian hegemonic ambitions constitute their principal and most immediate strategic threat, these countries have been focusing on air, missile defence and naval equipment, he added.

"The result of these ambitions has been an annual level of defence spending by GCC members that is disproportionate to the relatively small size of their militaries," Darling told IPS.

But hark, what possible development on yonder horizon could render all the lucrative sabre-rattling unnecessary?

At a summit meeting of three heads of state last week, Ahmadinejad struck a deal with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to ship roughly half of Iran's nuclear fuel to Turkey, thereby declaring his country's intentions not to develop nuclear weapons.

Although the deal was expected to undermine U.S. plans to move a fourth Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, the administration of President Barack Obama said Tuesday it will go ahead with the resolution, apparently with the backing of Russia and China.

If the resolution is adopted by the Security Council later next month, it will further strengthen the Western argument that Iran is on the verge of going nuclear, reinforcing existing fears in the Middle East.

Well that's strange, or rather, not strange at all. The last thing we want, really, is for Ahmadinejad to "back down". And the second last thing we want is for people to start wondering how peace will result from more people waving more guns around. That kind of wondering can also lead to the logical progression that goes along the lines of "Well, if everyone else is bringing a knife to the fight, then..."

Wezeman of SIPRI told IPS that decision makers in countries in the region and in the arms supplying countries will have to consider carefully how a large flow of conventional arms will actually provide protection against any presumed aggressive intentions by Iran.

They will have to consider how their high levels of armament, combined with the major presence of U.S. military in the region, are needed to deter Iran, and to which extent further arms procurement may fuel Iranian fears about the intentions of its neighbours, he pointed out.

This in turn, Wezeman said, could fuel an Iranian assessment that its conventional arsenal is inadequate to defend against overwhelming conventional forces of potential opponents.

- truthout.org/

And we wouldn't want that, would we? Well wait, wouldn't we? Do we or do we not want that? Frankly, at this point I'm getting a little confused at exactly what we actually want.

Film Review: Robin Hood

There is an awful lot of familiarity with the latest Robin Hood movie, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott. Not only is the Robin Hood story fairly familiar and well-known, but having these two guys in charge also brings a "Gladiator 2" feel to it. The problem with all that is the immense feeling of "seen it before" that pervades this film. The battle scenes, the village of Nottingham. The indolent King. The French revolutionaries. There's a significant portion of this film that really suffers from over-familiarity.

Which is a shame, as it's still a pretty good film. Russell Crowe effortlessly portrays Robin Hood as an ex-soldier who ends up pretending to be a nobleman, and will lead his people to defy stupid laws and taxes, resist the French, and stand up to the King. He is matched by a cool and feisty Cate Blanchett as Marion, and there is a certain chemistry between the two. We could have spent more time with them in the forest along with Will, Little John and Friar Tuck, but this is a film that wants to tell a bigger story about unfair taxation and French invasions, so we must spend time with the pouty king and his advisers, including another evil Mark Strong performance, and William Hurt.

I realize that it's important to have that part of the plot so that Robin Hood has something to be Robin Hood about, but ultimately this isn't really a movie about stealing from the rich to give to the poor, which is odd. It's really an origin story about Robin and his merry men, and how they helped to save an ungrateful king and country. Having an origin story in Robin Hood is perfectly normal, but I don't think anyone really expected the whole film to be origin story. And as origin stories go, this one feels a little plodding and drawn out, skipping over good scenes for more stuff with the King and his court, and finishing with a big battle that really feels like it comes out of nowhere. Three Arrows out of Five.

- Peace out

Future Looks Bright

2010-05-16T14:09:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Rainy

Road To Nowhere.

With the advent of the cellular phone, and further toys like the Ipad and the Ipod, hackers and virus-makers have been branching out into new territories with a variety of new and interesting attacks. But with automobiles now starting to connect to the internet, suddenly the scope is there for hackery on a whole new scale. Two teams of scientists have been researching what new forms of chaos could be unleashed.

The researchers, financed by the National Science Foundation, tested two versions of a late-model car in both laboratory and field settings. They did not identify the maker or the brand of the car, but said they believed they were representative of the computer network control systems that have proliferated in most cars today.

The researchers asked what could happen if a hacker could gain access to the network of a car, said Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington computer scientist. He said the research teams were able to demonstrate their ability to circumvent a wide variety of systems critical to the safety of drivers and passengers.

They also demonstrated what they described as “composite attacks” that showed their ability to insert malicious software and then erase any evidence of tampering after a crash.

The researchers were able to activate dozens of functions and almost all of them while the car was in motion.

- nytimes.com/

See, this is the downside of having more and more connection and integration, suddenly the potential holes that exist can lead to quite huge consequences. Simple systems meant to allow a car to check on traffic conditions can lead to someone setting a virus that disables everyone's airbags across the entire eastern seaboard, or worse. Don't get me wrong, I understand connection and integration is the way of the future, but I don't have to like it. Hopefully the engineers will always, always remember to include backup systems in anything they design. Meanwhile I'll be over here in my 40 year old sports car. Hack that.

Film Review: The Book Of Eli

Set in a post-apocalyptic America, the Book Of Eli features Denzel Washington who is basically on a mission from God. In possession of the last ever bible, he is taking it west, in the hope of finding a town who can use it to start rebuilding society. You know, as far as post-apocalyptic hooks go, that's a new one. The problem is that it doesn't quite work. It almost works, but eventually it just becomes a bit too incredulous. You see, on the road to utopia Denzel runs into a little town on the make, run by Gary Oldman. And the one thing Oldman wants is a bible, to help give him authority when he tells people what to do. You'd think his legion of goons would be enough.

But it's a legion that's quickly whittled away by Denzel, who's developed some brutally efficient fighting skills. Joining forces with Mila Kunis, who wants something better than being owned by Gary Oldman, the two set off for Utopia again, still being hunted by Oldman and his goons. I think the point of this film is about the bible and it's role in forming civilizations, but in practice the film really demonstrates how much violence seems to end up surrounding the bible, especially when it's mentioned that a lot of people thought the thing had caused the war in the first place.

The film is gritty, dusty, dirty and violent. It's unrelentingly grim, and ultimately it's making a point that I'm not sure I actually agree with. There really isn't anything about Eli that makes the audience want to cheer for him other than the fact that it's Denzel, and that trouble just seems to come after him. It's not enough. While I appreciate the trouble the filmmakers have gone to to make what's effectively an action film have some thoughtful underpinnings to it, I just don't think anyone in the movie is acting rationally. Add in a downer ending and it's not really a fun time at the movies. Two pairs of sunglasses out of five.

- Peace out

Out Of Control

2010-05-09T23:00:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cool, Calm

Who Really Is In Control?

Late last week the Dow Jones stock market plunged something like 1,000 points in a single day. The terrifying point is that no one really seems to know why.

The initial focus of the investigations appeared to center on the way a growing number of high-speed trading networks interact with one another and with venerable exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange. Most investors are unaware that these competing systems have fractured the traditional marketplace and have displaced exchanges like the Big Board as the dominant force in stock trading.

The silence from Washington cast a pall over Wall Street, where shaken traders returned to their desks Friday morning hoping for quick answers. The markets remained on edge, as the uncertainty over what caused Thursday’s wild swings added to the worries over the running debt crisis in Greece.
[...]

Over the last five years, the stock market has split into a plethora of new competing hubs and trading outlets, a legacy of deregulation earlier this decade and fast-paced technological change. On Friday, the rivalry between the two main exchanges erupted into view as each publicly pointed the finger at the other for being a main cause of the collapse on Thursday, which sent shockwaves around the globe.

- nytimes.com/

So here we are, in a society that hangs on a massively-compilicated financial system that's become so ridden with tricks and traps that we can start to see this kind of activity where no one knows what happened or why? Exactly how bad do things have to get before we start wising up and taking back control of critical systems?

Film Review: Iron Man 2

The first Iron Man was a surprise hit. A pretty great cast hooked into a pretty deep story about a son of a weapons industrialist who is humbled, and is forced to reinvent and redeem himself. And, also, robot fighting. The second film is also interested in exploring a bit more of Tony Stark's background, but this time the focus isn't on righting wrongs but on Tony having to fix his arc reactor design because it's poisoning his blood.

The story line is basically that America is uncomfortable with having it's defense maintained by this wealthy playboy who's more interested in having fun and showing off. And what's really odd is how much sense that actually makes. Sam Rockwell is supposed to be the bad guy who's trying to build his own weaponised Iron Man design for the military, but fundamentally I think the point he's making is logical. Tony Stark is just one alcoholic in a suit. In reality, one superman isn't enough to keep a nation safe or calm, especially a superman as imbalanced as Stark is.

Despite the imbalance of the underlying plot, and the lack of a focused story, the second Iron Man film is still pretty good. Mickey Rourke is playing essentially a Russian Stark, whose father was part of the original design work, and now wants revenge. He's in great form, but eventually you realize it's a role that just doesn't have enough meat on it. We needed more of a confrontation between these two men, instead of just Iron Men battling each other, which surprisingly gets old pretty fast. Robert Downey's Stark is a hard character to like, who's really fighting to fix problems that he's responsible for in the first place. I get the feeling this film is filling in for a bigger third film, that will have likely have more involvement from Samuel Jackson and Scarlet Johansson, who both are really just slumming it in this film. Two and a half punches out of Five.

- Peace out

Eating Toward Victory

2010-05-03T00:11:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Sunny.

Military Declares War On Fatness.

One thing that is still vital to the military is kids. You can't have a war without kids. I mean, who else would do all the dying? But there's a problem in the recruitment offices of America: Kids are getting fat, what with all the playstation and cheap hamburgers. Fat kids means smaller wars. And we can't have that.

"Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military," generals John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairs of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a commentary.

Obesity disqualified more potential recruits for military service than any other medical factor, the two former commanders wrote in the Washington Post.

The two generals urged Congress to adopt legislation that would ensure better nutrition in schools, offering children more vegetables, fruits and whole grains while cutting back on foods with high sugar, sodium and fat content.

- google.com/

Does anyone else get the massive irony in this?

"We must feed our nation's children more healthy food!"

"Because healthy kids grow up to be healthy adults, taking the strain off our economy?"

"No. Because we need kids to bleed on our future battle fields, and at the moment they're too fat to fit in the uniforms."

I mean seriously, if you have to choose between a gun and a cheeseburger, I really think the smart decision is also the fun decision. It sure beats cutting your thumb off.

Film Review: Daybreakers

I do enjoy me a good vampire movie, and Daybreakers has quite a good feel to it. It's the vampire apocalypse, this time triggered by a bat-virus that swept the planet. Humans have now become rare, and most of those left are kept in matrix-style blood milking installations, the largest of these run by a big corporation headed by Sam Neill. But Sam has a problem. With humans becoming rare the blood is running out, causing the vampires of the world to start devolving into shrieking, clawed animals. Society is on the verge of collapse, and the only hope is Ethan Hawke, who works for Sam as a blood doctor and is on the trail of a blood substitute vaccine.

But Ethan is a reluctant vampire, and sympathizes with the humans, so when he bumps into a bunch of them on the run he's more inclined to help them than turn them in. And when he meets William Dafoe, a former vampire who has become human again, then things get really complicated. This is a pretty involving film, there's a lot going on. And it's well shot, too. Set in the future, but with a real old-style classic feel to it. Not only do we get the fun of vampire hunting, we also get a story about society rapidly falling apart as overly-consumed resources run dry. There's also Sam Neil's attempt to reunite with his long-lost (human) daughter. Needless to say, it's a reunion that does not go well.

All in all, it's a very ambitious tale. And while it doesn't really have an ending in the classical sense, which is frustrating, it is somehow fitting that a story about society devolving into chaos isn't neatly tied up before the end credits. I enjoyed the trouble they went to with this, and the actors all do a pretty good job. There's also a bit of a twist in the ending, and I must say some of the most goriest of kills I've seen outside of a horror film. It's certainly a hard R. So, a vampire film that is dark, gothic, bloody and makes you think. It'll never catch on. Four fangs out of five.

- Peace out

Standing Idly, in-between

2010-04-25T11:27:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Moist.

Still Waving Fists At Iran

The latest declaration from President Obama regarding nuclear weapons, where he reserves the right to fire them at Iran, is being seen as another strategy in the ongoing attempt to persuade Iran that an attack from Israel is a near possibility.

Although administration officials have carefully refrained from drawing any direct connection between the new nuclear option and the Israeli threat, the NPR broadens the range of contingencies in which nuclear weapons might play a role so as to include an Iranian military response to an Israeli attack.

A war involving Iran that begins with an Israeli attack is the only plausible scenario that would fit the category of contingencies in the document.

Now we've seen this buildup coming from a long way away. So is it actually a viable strategy, or is it (still) completely the wrong approach?

As part of an apparent effort to make Iran uncertain about an Israeli attack, a series of public statements by U.S. senior officials over the past year have suggested that the would do nothing to prevent such an Israeli attack. However, the Obama administration has conveyed to the Israeli government privately that it strongly opposes any Israeli attack on Iran, according to reports in the Israeli press.

A former senior U.S. intelligence officer on Iran believes the nuclear option is likely to cause Iran to go farther in the direction of nuclear weapons rather than to give in. In an e-mail to IPS, Paul Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, said Iranian officials probably see the new nuclear option as "another manifestation of U.S. hostility toward Iran".

The perception of a U.S. threat to Iran "provides one of the principal incentives for Iranians to develop their own nuclear weapons", said Pillar.

Pillar said Iranians "may also see the doctrine as providing cover for an Israeli strike by serving as a deterrent against Iranian retaliation for such a strike".

- truthout.org/

Oh great, so it's both. On the one hand you look sternly toward the Iranians, warning them of terrible consequences, while at the same time you also look at Israel and ...warn them of terrible consequences. While in reality there's not a lot of viable things you can do to stop the ...terrible consequences from happening. How do we keep getting ourselves into these situations?

Film Review: The Hurt Locker.

The thing that makes a movie a movie, as opposed to a documentary, or footage from a news channel, is that the audience gets to explore and understand the characters who populate the world we are being exposed to. The Hurt Locker, a film set in Iraq and concentrating on three soldiers who's job it is to defuse various bombs left by insurgents, has been rightly praised for being gritty, intense and quite realistic. But the fundamental point of a film is missing here. By the end of the film we are almost exactly where we were when we started. There's not really much of a "movie" here. These characters are and remain as enigmas.

Particularly the main character, James who is brought in as the new bomb tech to replace the last one, and quickly establishes himself as a risk taker, a fact that pisses off his squad, who get put in more danger as a result of James's actions. War is a drug, and James is portrayed as a classic junkie, who feeds off the tension and drama, and seems addicted to it to an almost suicidal degree. But that is really all we know, and 2+ hours of film later we still don't know any more. There's no resolution, no arc, no revelation, the film just keeps moving along until the end, leaving us to our own conclusions, which inevitably are the obvious ones sentient beings have after watching a film about war.

I'm not saying it's a bad film, but I do wonder where all the buzz really came from. I mean, it's not really all that hugely impressive, really. It's shot shaky-cam style, with not-great picture quality, again presumably to make it feel more real, but in reality it's just a distraction. We know we're watching a movie, so why doesn't it just look like one and stop teasing? The film really feels like a video game, where our characters progress through a series of stages. But there's no master bomber at the end they have to face down, and no real lessons learned. In the end the characters remain simple, albeit caught up in complicated situations. Any chance to explore this premise of risk-takers thriving in a war environment is left to a few grunted words in a Humvee along the lines of "whatever, man." Three triggers out of Five.

- Peace out

This Week In Meh

2010-04-11T11:11:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Sunny, Clear.

Speaking Indifference To Power.

Recently General McChrystal, the senior military commander in Afghanistan, made an announcement concerning the shooting of civilians that was ...completely ignored.

KABUL, Afghanistan — American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.

“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,”
[...]

Though fewer in number than deaths from airstrikes and Special Forces operations, such shootings have not dropped off, despite new rules from General McChrystal seeking to reduce the killing of innocents. The persistence of deadly convoy and checkpoint shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate — a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation.

Failure to reduce checkpoint and convoy shootings, known in the military as “escalation of force” episodes, has emerged as a major frustration for military commanders who believe that civilian casualties deeply undermine the American and NATO campaign in Afghanistan.

Many of the detainees at the military prison at Bagram Air Base joined the insurgency after the shootings of people they knew, said the senior NATO enlisted man in Afghanistan, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall.

- nytimes.com/

Well on the one hand I guess it's nice to see the military admitting it's mistakes. But on the other hand, it would be a hell of a lot better to see some kind of reaction to these mistakes. The fact that not one of the people shot to death or wounded at a checkpoint was actually a bad guy trying to do harm is, frankly, a tragedy. A tragedy of planning, of operations, of bloody common sense. And the fact that we are still failing in common sense, some 9 odd years into a stupid pointless war, and still killing civilians, is sickening.

And furthermore, the fact that such an admission is made in this day and age, and does not become a scandal, just goes to show how indifferent we all really are at the end of the day. No body really cares about the Afghans, nobody ever really did.

Film Review: Clash Of The Titans

I'm not really sure how or why, but Sam Worthington seems to have become Hollywood's go-to guy for action movies. He's appeared in virtually each one of late, and here he is again in Clash of the Titans. This time he is Perseus, a half-godly bastard son of Zeus, played by Liam Neeson. Yes that's right, Liam Neeson. Dressed up in shiny god-armor and a beard straight out of a Greek fresco. Ralph Fiennes plays Hades, Zeus's brother, who pisses off Perseus by killing his family. The age of the gods is drawing to a close, and the age of man is dawning, with Perseus being tasked to lead an expedition to find a way to stop the Gods from unleashing the Kraken on the city of Eros, or Argos, or something Greek and ancient.

It's relatively silly stuff, with people wildly thrusting swords at giant screaming creatures, while Zeus and his cronies look down on it all from their throne room. He figures if he lets Hades unleash the Kraken, the people will be scared again and will resume praying to him. The ingratitude-of-the-beings-I-gave-free-will-too, kind of stuff. Perseus is in it for revenge, and hates the fact he's a half-god, despite it being the only reason he has a chance of succeeding. Along the way, he'll gain the respect of the poor sods who got roped into helping him, find love, and even bond with his dear old dad. Worthington is essentially reconstructing his terminator role, with a chunk of Maximus thrown in. But it's all a bit too light weight to have much of an impact.

So the CGI beasties are most impressive, and the action sequences are fairly well done. There's even a little bit of a moral somewhere, about governance I think, but really I'm not sure it's worth the effort. You see, Gods can't actually be killed, no matter how angry you are at them, so, yeah. It's ultimately a well-shot film, but with not a lot to it. It really needed more time with Zeus and the other Gods, to try and balance out the whole Gods versus Humans thing that this film is actually about. Instead it's kind of a road movie about guys that we really don't know much about, interspersed with big CGI battles. Two and a half togas out of five.

- Peace out

Navel Gazing Jerkily

2010-03-28T13:29:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cloudy.

Let The Exercise In Pointlessness Begin

Not content with ushering through a radical reforming of health care in America this week, President Obama has also made strides in a diplomatic agreement with Russia regarding Nuclear Weapons reductions.

Flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Obama said he was pleased to announce that "the United States and Russia have agreed to the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades."

The new treaty, which lasts ten years, will reduce the limit on deployed strategic nuclear warheads by more than 25 percent, and on launchers by half. It will also reestablish an inspection and verification regime that expired in December. Each nation will have to make its stockpile cuts within seven years after the treaty is ratified.
[...]

Though the pact recognizes Moscow's strong opposition to US plans to set up missile defenses in Europe, it does not restrict the United States from building such bases. Instead, the two nations have each drafted nonbinding statements outlining their positions on missile defense.

In its statement, Russia said that it reserved the right to use the withdrawal clause, available to both parties, if it decided the American missile defense plans threatened its security.

- truthout.org/

And the missile defense disagreements still overshadows everything.

Well this is all nice and good, but a 25 percent reduction in deployed missiles is not 100 percent, and it's never going to be. It is a move by America to get Russia to destroy it's missiles to better prevent them falling into terrorist hands, which is kind of insulting to the Russians, but they've signed up for it so what do I know. I just hope we all bear in mind that in no way does any of this have anything to do with getting rid of nuclear weapons, because the genie does not go back into the bottle.

Film Review: Green Zone.

Having seen previous Paul Greengrass movies I knew what to expect and purchased a ticket situated a little further back in the cinema than usual. And sure enough Greengrass brings us yet another shaky cam feast, where no matter what is happening, be it a dialog scene or an action scene, you are guaranteed not to be able to make out half of it thanks to the camera being shaken around as if it's being held by drunken uncle at a wedding. And as a special bonus, Paul has degraded the picture quality as well, so not only can you not tell what's happening, it looks as if it's coming in on that old television in the garage with the broken aerial. How charming.

It's a double pity this time because the film itself is pretty good. Matt Damon stars as a soldier tasked with charging around post-invasion Iraq looking for WMD's, and gradually figuring out that there's none to be found, and so trips over the big conspiracy that set the war up in the first place, and pits him against powerful forces who want the truth swept under the carpet.

This is heady stuff, and it's dragged out through an authentic-feeling fog of war that blanketed Baghdad in 2003. As with all Iraq movies, it will leave you feeling frustrated and angry, because of course we know the good guys aren't going to win, and the ending will not be a happy one. And that's bad, but you have to say everyone in front of the camera is doing a bang-up job regardless. The music is pretty good too, as is the plot. The action sequences are very exciting, and the characters are nicely filled out. It's just such a shame the camerawork is so distracting. Just think what a proper director could have done with this. Three blurs out of Five.

- Peace out.

Want Off The Bus

2010-03-21T23:19:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Some Warmth.

Roll On Freedom Train

Thomas L Friedman has written an op-ed on the anniversary of the Iraq war in which he's considering the voting Iraqis, and how much freedom they're taking for themselves now, and waxing philosophical.

Of all the pictures I saw from the Iraqi elections last weekend, my favorite was on nytimes.com: an Iraqi expatriate mother, voting in Michigan, holding up her son to let him stuff her ballot into the box. I loved that picture. Being able to freely cast a ballot for the candidate of your choice is still unusual for Iraqis and for that entire region. That mother seemed to be saying: When I was a child, I never got to vote. I want to live in a world where my child will always be able to.

God bless her. This was a very good day for Iraq.

Now I can agree that the voting process is indeed a good thing in Iraq, no problem with that. But of course we can't just leave things there, can we. No of course not.

Former President George W. Bush’s gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution. This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly. But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq, which has never known any such thing.

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out. Personally, at this stage, I only care about one thing: that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price — in lost loved ones or injured bodies, in broken homes or broken lives, be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits — see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost, it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none.

- nytimes.com/

See the most dangerous part in that sentence is the phrase "whatever the cost", as if no matter how many died, that as long as the survivors are freely democratic then "it" was worth it. It doesn't really take a lot of imagination to wonder where that kind of attitude can lead us. Frankly it's the exact same kind of attitude that lead us into this God-awful situation in the first place, hundreds of thousands are dead, countless more are injured, lives torn apart, infrastructures destroyed, and who really knows what the future implications will be. It's a strong indicator that despite it all, despite it all, some still *somehow* just haven't learnt the damn lesson, and so will never learn the lesson, and so will always believe that there is one pure right way to live, and that anyone who is not living that one right way is wrong, and must be "helped" into conforming. No matter the cost.

This is one of those moments where one's faith in the human species and our grand civilisation just kind of crumbles away, and the hard-edged reality gleams through from underneath. We really aren't going to learn, are we? We really are just going to do all this again, a few decades or so down the line, aren't we?

Film Review: Law Abiding Citizen

You know, films can be so frustrating sometimes. Films that come along that have a great premise, top actors, a good budget, and yet somehow manage to be less than the sum of their parts. Like this film, for example. On paper this promises to be brilliant stuff. Gerard Butler plays a father who takes revenge on the entire American legal system after the thug who kills his family in front of him is given a light sentence as part of a deal with hot shot prosecutor Jamie Foxx. It's a very familiar scenario to those of us who watch Law & Order, where a prosecutor has to make deals with murderers to get some kind of justice.

Denied true justice for so heinous a crime, Gerard then plans an elaborate revenge against not just the bad guys but also the entire legal system, a revenge that escalates even as he's put into jail. The plot is a cracker, but unfortunately the execution has not been carried out as well it might have. There are many places, and moments where they could have pushed things a little more, gotten some more from the actors, turned up the music a little louder, made the camera move a little more, really wring out the tension and the drama that's bubbling away beneath the surface here. Gerard's in his element as a brilliant engineer twisted by his need for revenge and desire to bring the system down. Jamie Foxx can do stylish hotshot lawyer with one arm tied behind his back, but what we really needed was a better sense of anguish as he sees this man start undermining his career, and his life, all with a demented grin on his face.

A final confrontation between the two is provided, but somehow the heat has come out of it, like a kettle taken off the boil. And while the conclusion itself is somewhat satisfying, it too is not fully explored, and it's frustrating seeing how good this film could have been if the director had just pushed things a little more, had wrung some more out of this than what we end up with. Three and a half fake mustaches out of Five.

- Peace out.

Let's Go To The Movies!

2010-03-14T11:24:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Warm, Cold, Rainy, Fine, Bah.

Film Review: Shutter Island

It feels like about the tenth time DiCaprio has teamed up with Martin Scorsese, and it's easy enough to see why they like working together. Scorsese's films seem to work better with the kind of intensity DiCaprio can bring to a role. Shutter Island is however a bit different, in that it's about a couple of federal agents investigating an Insane Asylum that's rumored to be carrying out experiments on it's patients.

Set in the 50's, DiCaprio plays a Fed who is haunted by his experiences as a soldier in WW2, and damaged by memories of a woman who killed her three children. But as the film develops we realize that there's a lot more going on, and that the truth is a lot more awful than we thought. Of course there's a big gothic storm, and a big gothic building, and big gothic doctors with their big gothic needles in concert with a big gothic soundtrack. And thrown into the mix are the flashbacks DiCaprio keeps having about being part of the American division of troops that first reached the Dachau concentration camp near the end of WW2. There's other flashbacks concerning his deceased wife trying to help him out. Or, is she?

It's a strong film, very dark and, well, gothic and fundamental. Ben Kingsley is in good form as the slightly odd head doctor, and Mark Ruffalo does a good job playing the partner. But the key is the big twist ending, that I won't spoil. It's a good twist, one that I feel the film legitimately earns, and of course changes everything we've seen. But in that twist any hope for redemption or a happy ending is completely lost, leaving the audience on a bit of a downer. And with a twist of this nature, there is a plot hole or two in how things shake out, and at some points you get the feeling Scorsese is trying a little too hard. But for the most part the atmosphere and the actors make things hum along nicely. Three pills out of Five.

Film Review: 9

In what could best be described as Wall-E meets Terminator, 9 tells the tale of humanity, in fact all life on earth, being wiped out following a war against artificially intelligent machines. Long afterward, amid the rubble, an odd puppet-like device awakes and begins to explore his surroundings, with the number 9 stenciled onto his back. He is quickly discovered by similar characters, each numbered, and realizes the state the world is in. The machines are still functioning, hunting and destroying anything that moves, and what's worse is a strange small device that could hold the key to defeating the A.I once and for all has gone missing.

These puppet characters, each with their own distinctive personalities and attitudes are then dragged into a desperate struggle to find the device and evade the head A.I machine and it's minions. Ultimately the film is about life, war, sacrifice and spirit. Flawlessly animated, a lot of the visuals are totally stunning, while the characters are distinctive and very authentic.

If there is one flaw in this charming film it is that it feels a little bit rushed, as if we're always in a hurry to get to the next sequence. The action sequences are amazing, but just as important are the character moments and the specter of a wasted world, full of junk. The ultimate message is one of hope amid hopelessness and the ever present threat of dehumanization in the face of technology. That it uses these strange little mechanized puppets to so strongly tell such a human story is a remarkable feat. Four springs out of Five.

- Peace out

Same Old Song and Dance

2010-02-28T22:33:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Hot.

Cheney Comes Clean. Yawn.

In an interview the former Vice President Dick Cheney talked about waterboarding of detainees, and how much he had to do with it:

On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' "This Week," Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush White House ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around the administration's policy interests.

"I was a big supporter of waterboarding," Cheney told Karl, as if he were issuing a challenge to officials in the current administration, including President Barack Obama, who said flatly last year that waterboarding is torture, to take action against him. "I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques..."
[...]

The US has long treated waterboarding as a war crime and has prosecuted Japanese soldiers for using it against US troops during World War II. And Ronald Reagan's Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

But Cheney's admissions back then, as well as those he made on Sunday, went unchallenged by Karl and others in the mainstream media. Indeed, the two major national newspapers--The New York Times and The Washington Post--characterized Cheney's interview as a mere spat between the vice president and the Obama administration over the direction of the latter's counterterrorism and national security policies.

- truthout.org

See, call me crazy but I think that might be an admission of a war crime. So therefore justice should be swift and sure, yes?

Well, no. Despite this and many other disclosures pointing to some terrible miscarriages of justice by American authorities the Obama administration has decided to paper over the whole thing, and Dick Cheney bragging about it on television isn't going to change a thing. And if that isn't astonishing enough, the media seems to have decided to so the same thing. It truly is a brave new world.

Film Review: Edge Of Darkness

Martin Campbell directs Mel Gibson in a Boston Detective thriller film, where Mel plays a veteren detective who's daughter is killed in front of him. Initially everyone thinks he was the target, but gradually Mel comes to realise his daughter was the actual target, and it's up to him to figure it all out and get some kind of justice. Apparently this film was originally a British television series that Campbell directed, and it kind of still feels like it. It takes a long time to get going, because we the audience already know what's going on, and it's frustrating to watch the characters spend a lot of time figuring out the obvious. Hence things tend to drag for the first half.

However once Mel gets the bit between his teeth things sharpen up nicely, and he goes after his daughters employers with a vengeance. It's good to have Mel back, even if it is a distinctly older and quieter Mel Gibson here. All he really has is grief and anger to work with, so it's kind of a fairly stark movie. And while the plot is reasonably simple, the characters are kind of weird. You've the big bad boss who just keeps making the wrong decisions, and Ray Winstone's character, who is supposed to be some kind of Governmental secret Cleaner who eliminates evidence and covers up conspiracies. However on this one Ray seems to take a stand on the side of Mel's grieving father, in light of his own situation.

In fact the underlying theme of the film and it's characters is loss, pain and inevitable death. I can't think of anyone having a happy ending here. It's actually kind of a bummer. It's definitely cast in the "revenge is the best kind of revenge" sort of deal, but it's a particular kind of all-costs revenge that leaves us at the end feeling rather glum. Still, it's a well-made film, and worth watching. Three twangy accents out of five.

- Peace out

Back On Deck

2010-02-21T10:37:00.003+12:00

Conditions: Indifferent.

The Russians take control

Not content with taking over from Nasa in the Orbit-shuttling business, the Russians are also making moves to take over the Saving-the-world business as well.

MOSCOW — Russia’s top space researchers will hold a closed-door meeting to plan a mission to deflect 99942 Apophis, an asteroid that will fly close to Earth two decades from now, said Anatoly N. Perminov, the head of Russia’s space agency, during an interview on Russian radio on Wednesday.
[...]

Scientists have proposed various methods of averting an asteroid impact, among them a spacecraft that would land on the asteroid and, using electric motors, very gradually turn its trajectory. Another method would involve striking it with missiles or employing a satellite that used gravitational pull to change the orbit.

Mr. Perminov said the plan he envisioned would involve “no nuclear explosions; everything will be based on the laws of physics.” Once a mission has been developed, Russia will invite NASA, the China Space Agency and the European Space Agency to participate, he said.

Russell L. Schweickart, a former Apollo astronaut who is chairman of the B612 Foundation, a California group that promotes efforts to deflect asteroids, hailed much of the proposal and said Mr. Perminov was the most influential official ever to articulate a coordinated deflection plan. But he objected to using Apophis to test new deflection methods, saying there was more risk if something went wrong.

“It takes a very small change in the Apophis orbit to cause it to impact the Earth instead of missing it,” Mr. Schweickart said. “There are a million asteroids out there. Find another one.”

- NYTimes

Hmmmm. Here's a scenario for you. The Russians take the initiative in developing a system to deflect asteroids and decide to use it on one that is going to make a near miss. Because it's a near miss the Western Space agencies haven't bothered with it. But, something goes wrong, the asteroid is knocked into our path, and there's no time to do anything about it.

Scandal on a scandal

In June 2006 three men being held at Guantanamo bay committed suicide. A report now on alternet contends that these three suicides were actually murders, dressed up to look like suicide.

The key to the discovery of the murder of the three men -- 37-year old Salah Ahmed al-Salami, a Yemeni, 30-year old Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, a Saudi, and 22-year old Yasser Talal al-Zahrani (photo, left), a Saudi who was just 17 when he was captured -- is Army Staff Sgt. Joe Hickman, a former Marine who reenlisted in the Army National Guard after the 9/11 attacks, and was deployed to Guantánamo in March 2006, with his friend, Specialist Tony Davila. On arrival, Davila was briefed about the existence of "an unnamed and officially unacknowledged compound," outside the perimeter fence of the main prison, and explained that one theory about it was that "it was being used by some of the non-uniformed government personnel who frequently showed up in the camps and were widely thought to be CIA agents."
[...]

Hickman was on duty in a tower on the prison's perimeter on the night the three men died, when he noticed that "a white van, dubbed the 'paddy wagon,' that Navy guards used to transport heavily manacled prisoners, one at a time, into and out of Camp Delta, [which] had no rear windows and contained a dog cage large enough to hold a single prisoner,” had called three times at Camp 1, where the men were held, and had then taken them out to "Camp No." All three were in “Camp No” by 8 pm.

At 11.30, the van returned, apparently dropping something off at the clinic, and within half an hour the whole prison "lit up." As Horton explains:

Hickman headed to the clinic, which appeared to be the center of activity, to learn the reason for the commotion. He asked a distraught medical corpsman what had happened. She said three dead prisoners had been delivered to the clinic. Hickman recalled her saying that they had died because they had rags stuffed down their throats, and that one of them was severely bruised. Davila told me he spoke to Navy guards who said the men had died as the result of having rags stuffed down their throats.

[...]

As Horton describes it, an official "suicide" narrative was soon established, and widely accepted by the media, if not by former prisoners and the dead men’s families. With extraordinary cynicism, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commander at Guantánamo, not only declared the deaths "suicides," but added, "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us." What was not mentioned were the rags stuffed into the prisoners’ mouths, even though this knowledge was widespread throughout the prison. Horton adds that when Col. Mike Bumgarner, the warden at Guantánamo, held a meeting the following morning, "the news had circulated through Camp America that three prisoners had committed suicide by swallowing rags."

He also states:

According to independent interviews with soldiers who witnessed the speech, Bumgarner told his audience that "you all know" three prisoners in the Alpha Block at Camp 1 committed suicide during the night by swallowing rags, causing them to choke to death … But then Bumgarner told those assembled that the media would report something different. It would report that the three prisoners had committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells. It was important, he said, that servicemen make no comments or suggestions that in any way undermined the official report. He reminded the soldiers and sailors that their phone and email communications were being monitored.

Despite being "on-message," Bumgarner let slip to two visiting reporters from a US provincial newspaper -- the only ones who were not immediately hustled off the base -- that each of the men who had died "had a ball of cloth in their mouth either for choking or muffling their voices." As punishment for straying off the script, Bumgarner was soon suspended, and had his office searched by the FBI.

[...]
It is now apparent that the authorities were desperate to ensure that no word of the events of June 9 was disclosed from prisoners to their attorneys. As David Remes, the attorney for 16 Yemenis, explained, the effect of the seizure "sent an unmistakable message to the prisoners that they could not expect their communications with their lawyers to remain confidential," but as part of its mission to blame attorneys for the deaths, the authorities went so far as to claim that Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal action charity Reprieve, had persuaded another prisoner, the British resident Shaker Aamer, to call for the deaths from his cell. Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight in October 2006, Zachary Katznelson, an attorney at Reprieve, explained that he was told by one of his clients in Guantánamo in August 2006 that interrogators were trying to blame Stafford Smith, saying that "it was Clive's idea, Clive's brainchild, that people had to commit suicide to bring attention to the base and to then force the government to close it."

With the election of Obama these guys decided to set the story straight.

Hickman approached Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall, and his son Josh (also a lawyer), and told his story, followed by the other three men. However, although the Denbeauxs approached the Justice Department, and had a meeting in February last year with Rita Glavin, the acting head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, John Morton, soon to be an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, and Steven Fagell, counselor to the head of the Criminal Division, little came of it. After hearing the whole sordid story, the officials thanked the Denbeauxs for "not speaking to reporters first and for 'doing it the right way,'" and, two days later, Mark Denbeaux was called by Teresa McHenry, the head of the Criminal Division's Domestic Security Section, who told him that she was starting an investigation and wanted to meet directly with Hickman.

Hickman met McHenry, and gave her the names and contact details of corroborating witnesses, but then the trail went cold. In April, "an FBI agent called to say she did not have the list of contacts" and "asked if this document could be provided again," and soon after, Steven Fagell and two FBI agents interviewed Davila, who had left the Army, and asked him if he would travel to Guantánamo to identify the locations of various sites. "It seemed like they were interested,” Davila told Horton. "Then I never heard from them again."

In late October, as Mark Denbeaux was preparing to unveil the Seton Hall report, there was brief communication with McHenry again, but on November 2, she called to say that the investigation was being closed:

"It was a strange conversation," Denbeaux recalled. McHenry explained that “the gist of Sergeant Hickman’s information could not be confirmed.” But when Denbeaux asked what that "gist" actually was, McHenry declined to say. She just reiterated that Hickman’s conclusions "appeared" to be unsupported. Denbeaux asked what conclusions exactly were unsupported. McHenry refused to say.

Horton notes correctly that "the Justice Department has plenty of its own secrets to protect," because it "would seem to have been involved in the cover-up from the first days, when FBI agents stormed Colonel Bumgarner’s quarters," which was "unusual." He also explains that, when the Justice Department sought court approval for the NCIS seizure of all the prisoners' letters

- Alternet.org

There's lots more, about the findings of the autopsies, and the point that neither of the three had any ties to terrorism. What does it all add up to? Well, I don't mean to sound pessimistic but, well wait a minute, actually I do mean to sound pessimistic, because I'm pretty damn sure nothing more will come of it. Prove me wrong, fate!

Film Review: Wolfman

To me a good horror movie is more about atmosphere than it is about scares. A creepy setting with lots of tension gets my vote over simple blood and guts. Which is why on paper the Wolfman should be a winner. Something of a remake of the classic Wolfman film, this one stars Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro, and even Hugo Weaving. It's set in classic Victorian England, and is all about the creepy atmosphere of the woods and the moor and old run-down estates. It even sticks, as much as is possible these days, with the more classic makeup and suit effects rather than relying on 100% digital effects.

And the action is full on, with lots of Wolfman attacks and villagers getting decapitated and ripped to peices. There's even a rampage through the streets of London, and a Wolfman vs Wolfman fight. But despite all this, there's something wrong with the film. It lacks any real depth, any real heart as to why we should care for any of the characters, even the victims. There is a love interest, but it's lackluster and, well, British. Anthony Hopkins is always brilliant when he's given a character to do something with, but here it's like he's been purposely suppressed, quiet and retiring as if to contrast with the feral Wolfman. It's a shame because this film desperately needs the life Anthony can bring to a film.

Without that it's surprisingly dim and grey in tone. There's some interesting ideas but nothing is really pushed. And annoyingly the director has relied on using jump scares in startling the audience at every turn. On a regular basis there'll be a fast shot of the Wolfman and the classic musical "sting" to really sell it. It's gets a little old after the tenth time. In the end you feel that the film was good, but that it could have been even better if they'd pushed it, and surely this concept had ample scope for extra pushing. Two and a half howls out of Five.

- Peace out

Here We Go Again

2010-01-16T23:14:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Cold, Wet, Typical.

Creeping On

In all the fear mongering recently over Iranian Nuclear Weapons factories, a little thing got overlooked: the truth. So here's a little update to the story the London Times newspaper published regarding papers proving Iran is working on a nuclear trigger mechanism

Washington - New revelations about two documents leaked to The Times of London to show that Iran is working on a "nuclear trigger" mechanism have further undermined the credibility of the document the newspaper had presented as evidence of a continuing Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

A columnist for the Times has acknowledged that the two-page Persian language document published by The Times last month was not a photocopy of the original document but an expurgated and retyped version of the original.

A translation of a second Persian language document also published by The Times, moreover, contradicts the claim by The Times that it shows the "nuclear trigger" document was written within an organisation run by an Iranian military scientist.

Former Central Intelligence Agency official Philip Giraldi has said U.S. intelligence judges the "nuclear trigger" document to be a forgery, as IPS reported last week. The IPS story also pointed out that the document lacked both security markings and identification of either the issuing organisation or the recipient.

The new revelations point to additional reasons why intelligence analysts would have been suspicious of the "nuclear trigger" document.

On Dec. 14, The Times published what it explicitly represented as a photocopy of a complete Persian language document showing Iranian plans for testing a neutron initiator, a triggering device for a nuclear weapon, along with an English language translation.

But in response to a reader who noted the absence of crucial information from the document, including security markings, Oliver Kamm, an online columnist for The Times, admitted Jan. 3 that the Persian language document published by The Times was "a retyped version of the relevant parts of that original document".

Kamm wrote that the original document had "contained a lot of classified information" and was not published "because of the danger that it would alert Iranian authorities to the source of the leak".

- truthout.org/

Ahh, yes. The old we don't want to go into details because you're not allowed to know the details defense. Of course the legitimate next move would be to publicly announce the new findings, and so clear Iran of the allegations, but we already know that's not going to happen. Fake or not, stories about Iran's nuclear weapons program are exactly what the western powers want people to be reading about, for the obvious reasons.

Danger In Pursuit Of Safety

In the wake of the underwear bomber, airports around the world are scrambling to install new and expensive full-bodied scanners able to look through clothing to check if passengers are concealing weapons. But are these new scanners safe and effective? And does anyone care?

In researching the biological effects of the millimeter wave scanners used for whole body imaging at airports, NaturalNews has learned that the energy emitted by the machines may damage human DNA.

Millimeter wave machines represent one of two primary technologies currently being used for the "digital strip searches" being conducted at airports around the world. "The Transportation Security Administration utilizes two technologies to capture naked images of air travelers - backscatter x-ray technology and millimeter wave technology," reports the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit currently suing the U.S. government to stop these electronic strip searches.

In order to generate the nude image of the human body, these machines emit terahertz photons -- high-frequency energy "particles" that can pass through clothing and body tissue.

The manufacturers of such machines claim they are perfectly safe and present no health risks, but a study conducted by Boian S. Alexandrov (and colleagues) at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico showed that these terahertz waves could "...unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication."

In layman's terms, any time you're talking about interfering with "gene expression" and "DNA replication," you're essentially talking about something that could be a risk to human health.
[...]

"At first glance, it's easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging," reports TechnologyReview.com. "But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe."

And yet no such long-term safety testing has ever been conducted by a third party. There have been no clinical trials indicating that multiple exposures to such terahertz waves, accumulated over a long period of time, are safe for humans. The FDA, in particular, has never granted its approval for any such devices even though these devices clearly qualify as "medical devices."

- truthout.org/

We shouldn't really be surprised. Fear always makes us do crazy and unhealthy things, and reacting to a failed attempt to blow up a plane by causing untold amounts of people in the future to get irradiated at airports seems perfectly normal.

What's really great in all of this is the boon it will be for the media. First they get to do the stories around the bombing attempt itself, then they get to do stories about the scanners and how they work and who's installing them, and then they get to do stories about the health scare for passengers exposed to the scanners. It's win win win.

More: Alternet: Who's Getting Rich From The Scanner Boom?

Film Review: Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie has made his name directing scatter shot British crime movies like RockinRolla, so moving to a more stable platform like Sherlock Holmes is not as big of a stretch as it could of been. Casting Robert Downey Jr as Holmes is also not a stretch, as he has made his name playing odd, eccentric, brilliant characters, and effortlessly conveys the most famous and eccentric detective. And Jude Law is also an easy fit for the solid ex-military man Watson. In fact, since the actors are solid, and the setting is solid, and the characters are so well known, the film really feels like you've seen it before. In fact the relationships here are so well established that one of the themes of the film is about Watson and Holmes splitting up and going their separate ways, as they've been a team for too long. There's also conspiracies afoot concerning secret societies and the British parliament, and various steam punk influenced gadgets are on display, as if in an episode of CSI: Olde England.

The film is well shot, the music is appropriate, Holmes' antics are odd and fun, everything has a complicated explanation, and there's a variety of fistfights, gunfights and explosions to keep us interested. It's almost too easy. In fact the problem with Sherlock Holmes is basically that every part of his legacy has been stolen in some way by later generations. Hence this movie cannot surprise anyone who has seen an episode of Monk, House, CSI, or that Jackie Chan movie where he went to England and met Arthur Conan Doyle.

Another thing, and this is probably just me, but old england is so decrepit and dirty that it really comes across as a big downer. It makes you wonder how did a whole population live like this without either dying, killing themselves or leaving? If you can sit through the opening credits of Coronation Street without clawing your own eyes out then you should be fine, but frankly I wasn't really comfortable with the bleak and unendingly-grey sets covered in four layers of dust. Is it a great film? No, but it does what it sets out to do, hoisting Holmes one more time into popular culture. Three Elementaries out of Five.

Xmas Viewing

2009-12-28T14:37:00.001+12:00

Conditions: Annoyingly Overcast.

Film Review: Avatar

Technology is a funny beast. Allowing the creation of wonderful things, but also able to become a great distraction in it's own right. To what extent does a new technology serve itself at the expense of what it was meant to serve? Here James Cameron has invented a whole new way of shooting a movie with digital characters in three dimensions, and he combined this new technology with a story set in the future, about a clash between advanced and primitive cultures. And ultimately the film both demonstrates and embodies the conflict inherit in story telling: that between style and substance. Avatar is an intense film about humans doing what they do best: screwing everything up in order to get what they want. It centers on a crippled ex-marine who, through the Avatar program, gets the chance to walk again on planet Pandora, as an emissary between the corporation who are mining the planet and the Na'vi tribe who live above a huge deposit of the precious ore. Through circumstance he bonds with the native Na'vi, and becomes the chosen one who will ultimately unite the tribles and lead the resistance against the human armed forces. We're running the full gamut here from science fiction-y spaceships and robots to fantasy creatures and the spirit of the planet herself, with a bit of Romeo and Juliet thrown in.

It's been over ten years since Cameron shot Titanic, so a lot more since his last action film, but he doesn't disappoint on any front. The slow parts are full of meaning, the fast parts are visceral and intense, and the pacing is perfect. In fact, although the film is over two and a half hours we could easily take more time on Pandora. Ultimately, though, the film lives or dies on it's digital creatures and it's 3D portrayal and while the creatures are fantastic, I have to express reservations over the whole 3D thing. It's not as though the 3D effects are bad, in fact the 3D in this film is easily the best I've ever seen, seamlessly projecting the depth of objects without the awful "cardboard cutout" effect I've seen on other 3D films. No, the problem simply comes down to one of distraction. Every time something sticks out of the picture, you're reminded again of how cool it is to be seeing something in 3D. And every time you do that, you're a little bit distracted from the film itself. And since the whole point of why we're here is to watch a film, unfortunately I have to conclude that the 3D effects detract from the movie-going experience, instead of enhancing it. 3D is best left to other things that don't include character or story elements. I believe the best way to watch this film is in 2D first, then if you like you can see it again with the glasses.

The story itself is a strong one, centering on a broken soldier who is brought to another battlefield, given another chance, and looks at it through new eyes, falls in love with the other side and decides to fight against his own species. There's a lot of subtle details going on amid the Alien jungle and fearsome beasts. While the characters are computer graphics, they've been hooked up to the actors performace so well that you immediately accept them as completely real, as if the actors are just wearing a lot of blue makeup. This allows some great performances from Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana to shine through. It's astounding to think how much work must have gone into that, and it's a credit that the audience accepts it completely, and that the characters give fully-dramatic performances. And while the story could be compared to Dances With Wolves, and there are obvious references to the great American Iraqi adventure, I believe the film stands up on it's own, or at least that it would if it were not so obscured by the 3D glasses. Has the technology gotten in the way of the meaning? It's ironic that such a question is asked in the film itself, as well as laying at the heart of many of Cameron's previous films. Will we focus on the important yet subtle details, or pursue the flashy path to self-destruction? Four Beasties out of Five.

- Peace out

No Consequences

2009-12-13T10:43:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Windy

Just Business.

Timing is everything in business, which is why that right now, in the middle of an enormous recession, and in the heart of an apparent ongoing environmental crisis, Richard Branson has announced a new venture aimed at taking people into orbit and back.

LOS ANGELES (Agence France-Presse) — Richard Branson, the British billionaire, will unveil a craft on Monday that could soon carry tourists on a trip into space for $200,000 each.

The craft, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, will make its debut on the moonlike landscape of the Mojave desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

SpaceShipTwo, which can carry six passengers and two pilots, is scheduled to begin test flights next year and start commercial flights in 2011 or 2012.

Virgin Galactic, owned by Mr. Branson’s Virgin Group and Aabar Investments of Abu Dhabi, says about 300 people from around the world have paid a total of $40 million in deposits to guarantee spots on the carbon composite aircraft.

Seriously? In this day and age, people are willing and happy to pay a fortune to be ferried into orbit for a few hours. I really can't help but feel this world has it's priorities seriously screwed up. I mean, kudos to Brandon for identifying a market and selling to it, but what is up with wanting to spend 200 large for a ride up and back?

“First a few will go to space, but ultimately, over the next hundred years or so, spaceflight will become commonplace,” said Charles Chafer, chief executive of Space Services, a Houston company that specializes in space funerals.

In 2007, the company released into space the ashes of the actor James Doohan of “Star Trek.”

A Space Services spokeswoman, Susan Schonfeld, said the company now takes the ashes of hundreds of people at a time into space, compared with 27 people in 2007.

“Through the years, I have had the opportunity to speak to hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the world,” she said, “but 99 percent of the people are everyday people like myself that have a very deep sense of exploration I do believe is in all of us.”

- www.nytimes.com/

Exploration? Where is there any sense of exploration in the concept of being cargoed up to orbit and back? There's nothing exploratory about it. It's mundane and commonplace, and about to become even more mundane and commonplace. Suck on that, mother nature.

The Magic Number

In the war on terror, perception is everything. Which is why such importance is on casualty counts of any action against "the enemy". And so, inevitably, the count itself becomes the battle.

On Monday, the anonymous blogger Security Crank noticed something interesting: all the U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan seemingly kill exactly 30 people every time. How can that be?

Security Crank documented no less than 12 occasions in which news reports, relying on field commanders' estimates, noted that exactly 30 suspected Taliban were killed in airstrikes and, occasionally, artillery attacks.

The point Security Crank is making is that how can we really have any freaking idea of how the war is going if we can no longer trust the amount of casualties being produced by it?

So, why is it always 30? Do thirty casualties seem like enough to justify a military attack, or few enough to not attract too much attention to an incident?

Another blogger, Joshua Foust of the Central Asia blog Registan, seemingly stumbled upon the answer.

- alternet.org/world/144509/

He found an article in the LA Times from last July by Nicholas Goldberg, that noted:

In a grisly calculus known as the "collateral damage estimate," U.S. military commanders and lawyers often work together in advance of a military strike, using very specific, Pentagon-imposed protocols to determine whether the good that will come of it outweighs the cost.

We don't know much about how it works, but in 2007, Marc Garlasco, the Pentagon's former chief of high-value targeting, offered a glimpse when he told Salon magazine that in 2003, "the magic number was 30." That meant that if an attack was anticipated to kill more than 30 civilians, it needed the explicit approval of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or President George W. Bush. If the expected civilian death toll was less than 30, the strike could be OKd by the legal and military commanders on the ground.

- latimes.com/2009/

So, there we go. The pentagon has determined that if less than 30 people die in a military attack, even if they're civilians, then the public won't care. And so this has inevitably trickled up to the military commanders on the ground, who unsurprisingly then tailor their tallies in order to to not stand out in the river of statistics that is modern warfare.

Quick Release

With little fanfare, one of the true victims of Bush's war on terror was release and sent home last week.

The long ordeal of Fouad al-Rabiah, an innocent man and a 50-year-old father of four, who had been in US custody for almost exactly eight years, finally came to an end today, when he was flown back to his homeland of Kuwait from Guantánamo, where he had spent the majority of those lost years, after several brutal months in US custody in Afghanistan.

Until the moment of his release, everything about his treatment at the hands of the US government was shameful.Twelve weeks ago, when District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted his habeas corpus petition, and ordered his release, she revealed the most extraordinary - and extraordinarily depressing - story. This shone the most unflinching light on Guantánamo as a place where men, who were rounded up for bounty payments by the US military's allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and were never adequately screened on capture, were then sent to Guantánamo. Once there, in the absence of any information to back up the administration's claims that they were "the worst of the worst," they became the victims of false allegations made by other prisoners (who were either coerced to do so, or were bribed with the promise of improved living conditions), and were then tortured and abused to make false confessions.

- truthout.org/1210093

Film Review: Zombieland

It's not every day you can combine a Zombie film with a Road Trip movie. Actually, scrap that. Virtually every Zombie movie is a road movie, it's part of the charm. But not every Zombie movie is a slightly sweet coming-of-age comedy, a feat pulled of here with Zombieland. Jesse Eisenberg stars as Columbus, a nerdy shut-in who ironically is released by the end of the world as we know it. Being obsessive, he mocks up a series of rules to live by in the Zombie world, in order to stay alive. Things like staying fit and smart. To that end he meets up with Woody Harrelson, in full cartoon mode as a Zombie killing cowboy-type, and they head off roughly south west, looking for any other survivors.

They quickly run into a pair of sisters who don't trust anyone and are heading for an amusement park in California. So eventually they all go there, and end up having a massive shoot out with Zombies. Apart from a pretty good cameo, that's basically it. So the plot is kinda weak, and it's really up to these characters and their dynamic to engage us. And to a certain extent they do, all coming out of their protective shells to a certain extent and growing into a family type unit.

Of course this would all be terribly boring if not for the whole Zombie angle, and a fair dosage of quips, one liners and Woody Harrelson offing zombies with various gardening implements. So it really is fun for the whole family, with an overriding message of learning to come out of our caves and interact with each other, before it's all too late. How sweet. Three Braaaiiins out of Five.

- Peace out

Controversy Ahoy

2009-12-06T12:53:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Overcast.

Let the Exercise In Futility Begin

At this point there is nor further debate over the whys and hows America and Britain declared war on Iraq on behalf of the rest of the world. They did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, in a combination of greed, fear and hubris. And no justice will ever be delivered to these architects, they are free to live out their lives as respected statesmen. However, for some reason a panel in Britain has been put together to go over it all once again

LONDON — A panel investigating Britain's role in the Iraq war begins questioning witnesses this week in an inquiry that critics hope will humble former Prime Minister Tony Blair and expose alleged deception in the buildup to conflict.

The investigation is the most sweeping probe yet into the war by any nation that was involved.

It is expected to consider allegations Blair secretly backed President George W. Bush plan's for invasion a year before Parliament authorized military involvement in 2003.

The panel, which opens public hearings Tuesday, will question dozens of officials over several months — including Blair, military officials and spy agency chiefs. It will also seek evidence from ex-White House staff.

Bereaved families and anti-war activists have long called for a comprehensive study to consider Britain's role in a conflict that left 179 British soldiers dead and triggered massive public protests.

But some worry the hearings will do little to answer lingering doubts about Britain's rush to join the war. Led by a panel appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the inquiry won't apportion blame, or establish criminal or civil liability — only offer reprimand and recommendations in hopes mistakes won't be repeated in the future.

- www.google.com/

Yeah, well, big deal. While it's always fun to dig all the old stuff back up again, and it's always fun to turn the spotlights on and watch the cockroaches squirm, it really is going to end up as another slap to the face of Iraq. They did it, there's no justification as to why, the end.

Are We Under A Cloud Or Not?

Climate Change, that long held bogey monster, has now been challenged after a series of leaked emails showed some climate change scientists had actually been cooking the data a little bit. Does this challenge the very core findings of climate change, or is this just an over reaction to some practical scientific practices?

“Climategate,” as some label the controversy, concerns at least 1,000 e-mails and files leaked or hacked from computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain.

Many of the e-mails are innocuous. But others depict a small, influential group of scientists – several of whom work on global temperature trends over the past 1,500 years – trying to prevent skeptics of their work from gaining access to raw data used.

Other e-mails suggest some researchers manipulated data and tried to block publication of papers that called their work into question. One e-mail urges colleagues to destroy e-mails related to work on the 2007 IPCC reports on global warming.
[...]

Testifying before Congress the same day, President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren, told lawmakers that the science behind global warming, although “incomplete,” is sound. But he added that if data has been manipulated “in ways not scientifically legitimate, I regard that as a problem and I would denounce it.”

The IPCC chair has said the e-mails don’t undermine its reports. This is because climate-change research relies on many lines of evidence and thousands of research papers, while the e-mails relate mainly to one line of evidence and a relative handful of papers.

But the e-mails do show some scientists trying to protect a higher level of confidence in their results than the data allow, says John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and a target in the e-mails.

“This puts the whole field under a cloud,” he says.

- www.truthout.org/

If science really is the quest for truth, then all of this will end up for the good, as any and every theory should be challenged on a regular basis. The concern here is that if legislators, and people in general, suddenly think we've all been fooled, and we actually haven't, then getting them back on board again will be almost impossible. It's simple: the more complicated and controversial something is, the more open it needs to be in order for it to work.

The Games Afoot

In a striking example of treating the symptoms rather than the disease, Human Rights groups have criticized some video game makers for creating games that depicted war in an ungoverned and unregulated way.

Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts.

Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime.

The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings.

It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.

War without limits

The study was carried out by two Swiss human rights organisations - Trial and Pro Juventute. Staff played the games in the presence of lawyers skilled in the interpretation of humanitarian laws.

Twenty games were scrutinised to see if the conflicts they portrayed and what players can do in the virtual theatres of war were subject to the same limits as in the real world.
[...]

The testers looked for violations of the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols which cover how war should be waged.

In particular, the testers looked for how combatants who surrendered were treated, what happened to citizens caught up in war zones and whether damage to buildings was proportionate.

Some games did punish the killing of civilians and reward strategies that tried to limit the damage done by the conflict, said the study.

However, it said, many others allowed "protected objects" such as churches and mosques to be attacked; some depicted interrogations that involved torture or degradation and a few permitted summary executions.

- news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/

You have got to be freaking kidding me. War Video Games come under fire for allowing gamers to commit war crimes? This is like prosecuting Race Car Sim players for speeding and dangerous driving. I seriously doubt that there's a lack of real-world conflict and human rights abuses for these guys to be sticking their noses into. Maybe they figure it's a hell of a lot easier to go after Video Games companies than it is to go after members of the U.N security council, and multi-national corporations. And while that's probably true, it means that if you can't go after the top dogs, then you shouldn't be going after anyone at all.

- Peace Out

Let Them Die

2009-11-22T12:26:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Overcast.

Taking Stock

One of the more troubling moves by the American military over the last few years has been the push towards wanting to develop new types of nuclear weapons, in anticipation of the current crop of nukes becoming either ineffective or disabled through age. The upshot of that is a new dangerous period of nuclear development and testing that could well upset the applecart of peace surrounding the decades-old nuclear mutually-assured-destruction standoff with nukes. Happily, an advisory panel has taken the wind of of the sails:

WASHINGTON -- A top-level independent advisory panel has told the Obama administration that the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal could remain viable for years to come using standard warhead life-extension approaches

If embraced by Washington, the finding would suggest that the United States could avoid building an expensive new generation of nuclear warheads to replace those currently fielded.

"Lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss of confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed" in maintaining the stockpile to date, according to JASON, a panel of senior scientific and technical experts frequently consulted by the U.S. government.

The findings are already proving controversial, though more than a year has passed since Congress twice denied Bush administration funding requests for developing a new series of weapons -- called the Reliable Replacement Warhead -- aimed at modernizing U.S. nuclear arms

President Barack Obama's national security team remains split over how best to keep the stockpile functioning, even as the White House embarks on an ambitious agenda aimed at eventually eliminating nuclear weapons

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and some of his top generals have insisted that at least one or two vintage warheads would have to be replaced with more modern designs if the nuclear arsenal is to remain functional

- globalsecuritynewswire.org/

Yes, but I think it's safe to say that the Generals would say that, really. In reality, with Washington trying to preach a non-proliferation line of thinking for the future of international relations, it'd be a bit rich for the military to start designing new bombs for themselves. And so it's quite possible this could be a win for the calm and rational. About time.

Film Review: 2012

In his time, Roland Emmerich has blown the world up in one way or another on many famous occasions, with everything from aliens to giant lizards to global warming. So it seems logical to have him helm the latest installment in the disaster film genre: 2012. This time around it's in the form of mutated neutrinos heating up the Earths core and eventually causing global earthquakes the scale of which has never been imagined. It's down to writer John Cusack to save his family before everything is destroyed. And that's kind of the problem. See, unlike previous disaster films, here there is nothing that can be done to save everyone, no monsters to fight, no puzzles to solve. The world is going to end, billions of people will die, and all we have is the plight of this small family to try and offset the spectacular and detailed downfall of an entire civilisation. And despite how cute the little girl is, or how touching it is that John's ex-wife still loves him, or whether the dog survives or not, this is one hell of a downer to hang a story on.

The action sequences are spectacular, as you would image and frankly, in this day and age, come to expect. We didn't come to watch the end of the world without experiencing it in high-definition and surround sound. But if there's one thing that Roland has taught us in his previous films, is that spectacle itself is hollow and worthless if it doesn't have some heart and some hope to pin it on, and so it is most surprising that from the outset this film lacks both. It's not as if Cusack isn't trying, as are the other cast members, they're just not being given anything to do other than run, scream on cue, and look disheveled. The only sliver of hopes lies with the B story, wherein Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton and Oliver Platt organize how to save the human species, and which pieces of artwork will be preserved.

To this end, giant ships have been built in China, and it is to China that the lucky and the rich make their way as the seas begin to rise and the cities fall. John and co scrap their way there as well as best they can, and so for a finale, with billions already dead, we essentially have a mini Poseidon Adventure as the giant ark ships get knocked around and Cusack has to half-drown in order to save the day. Who the hell builds a ship where the engine can't be started until the doors are closed? The only real drama among all this is Chiwetel's anger at his bosses decision to keep the whole 'Armageddon' thing a secret from the masses. And it's a fake-feeling kind of anger, one that prison guards might express at the revelation of prison abuse. I mean, come on. Frankly, the lack of any good options makes the ending a real bummer, despite all the dawn rosiness the Hollywood computers can render. There's almost a sense here of the director just not really caring anymore. As if as long as he can drop an aircraft carrier onto the U.S President as he stands in front of the White House, then to hell with anything else. It's hard to believe this is the same director that made us care about a drunken crop duster. One collapsing skyscraper out of Five.

- Peace out

When The Light Comes

2009-11-15T21:18:00.002+12:00

Conditions: Warm.

Fear of Justice?

So, the Obama administration has decided to take it's five top aces from Gitmo and try them in open court in New York. That's a fairly brave decision there, and not without it's risks. For what do we really know about the top dog, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?

Mohammed has admitted to interrogators that he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He allegedly proposed the concept to Osama bin Laden as early as 1996, obtained funding for the attacks from Mr. bin Laden, oversaw the operation and trained the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was born in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and raised in Kuwait. He also has been charged in a 1995 terror plot to bomb or hijack 11 US-bound flights originating in Asian countries. He was arrested March 1, 2003, during a raid by Pakistani officials in Rawalpindi, a city outside Islamabad.

Wow, that's a pretty damning statement. I wonder how he came to make it?

Where to prosecute Mohammed and al-Nashiri has been particularly problematic for the Obama Administration, since it is now widely known that both men were waterboarded multiple times while being held in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ah. And there lies the problem. For if these guys are to go in front of a court of law, said court is going to have to consider the fact that any evidence of admissions of guilt are also accompanied by the point that these guys were tortured. How do you get around that?

But legal authorities consulted appeared to agree that the Justice Department must have a high degree of confidence in the strength of these cases, even though one of the central issues will be admission of evidence obtained through torture. Holder said the DOJ has substantial evidence not yet made public and, presumably, not obtained through coercion.

So, there's other evidence they have. Secret evidence. That perhaps wasn't obtained through torture. Well, since this will be an open court case the evidence must presumably made public and then we'll know for ourselves. But it still doesn't really address the who torturing part of the deal.

The Bush administration filed charges against the men last year before a military commission, asserting that it would be difficult to successfully prosecute the men in federal court in part because that might force the US government to disclose and defend the prisoners' treatment in CIA custody.

- truthout.org/

And the full disclosure of just what the CIA and the military and who knows who else were up to in the war on terror just might be enough to derail court cases focusing on these suspects. But that's the price you pay for freedom, I guess.

Film Review: Capitalism. A Love Story

Michael Moore has taken on a lot of big targets in his films, but his latest one seems like a mountain too high, or a bridge too far. Moore's latest target is capitalism, that bedrock of American civilization. Moore sets out to illustrate, basically, how capitalism was good, how it's now bad, how it was changed or mutated into what we have now, and essentially how it should now be replaced with Socialism. Throughout, in his bumbling, common-man fashion, Michael interviews common folk who have become victims of America's latest recession, using them and their tears to illustrate his wider points.

So where did capitalism go wrong? Basically back in the eighties, when the regulators were taken out of the system, a process that has set in slowly over many years, and the effects of which are starting to be felt more and more with each crisis. According to Moore, Reagan started the rot when he allowed Wall Street guys to start calling the shots from inside the White House, and it's been downhill ever since.

What's particularly chilling, more than the scores of people who have become victims by not reading the fine print of their mortgages and debt payments, is the background information regarding the massive 700 billion dollar bailout that was given to companies that had friends and or former employees as advisers to the White House. No one seems to know what happened to that money, as it was voted in in a climate of fear that the economy was about to go bust, and so had no strings attached to it, and no requirement as to how the money would be used. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, a saying that now applies to the system that Capitalism has become in America. Moore's documentary is powerful, but it's aimed against a system so big and far reaching it really struggles to encapsulate the full breadth of the problem, especially since Moore insists on spending a large amount of time personalizing the economic crisis. Still, it's a worthy film. Not as powerful as Fahrenheit 9/11, but strong in it's own way. Four Fat Cats out of Five.

- Peace out