Sign 'o the Times

Conditions: Overcast, quiet

This Modern World

There's a lot of fear in our world today. The old fears are as present as ever: fear of death, sickness, aloneness, poverty, etc. But some new fears have crept in under the door, like cockroaches. Some perhaps valid: like a fear of carjacking. Some, not valid at all.

Researchers found 66 per cent of people are terrified of being without their phone, and the younger they are the more worried they are.

First identified in 2008, it would appear nomophobia - defined as 'the fear of being out of mobile phone contact' - is increasing with far more admitting to the problem than when a similar poll was conducted four years ago.
[...]

The study, commissioned by SecurEnvoy, revealed that 41 per cent of the people polled have two phones or more in an effort to stay connected.

- telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/

That's right, the stupid phones people carry about with them constantly, and are forever tapping away at, have now gotten into people's minds so much that a significant number are now terrified of losing them. This is another step towards madness. It's just a phone, it does not define who you are. And if it does define who you are, then perhaps you actually do need to lose it.



Film Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

You know, it's a fundamental belief I have that the principal role of a movie is to entertain the audience. That is the one thing it must do, if nothing else. A film can contain the most brightest of stars, the most amazing of effects, the most dazzling of plots, but if it cannot fundamentally entertain the audience, then it has failed. Well, what is entertainment, you may well ask. How does one quantify it? Can you use a meter of some kind, or measure against some sort of standard? Ultimately, I believe it is simply a gut thing. You know when you've been entertained or not, and so the most worthy of films still has to pass over the bar each of us carries into the theater. Dragon Tattoo had a lot going for it. Based on a popular book, and serving as the Hollywood remake of the original Scandinavian adaptation, with a flock of good actors, a big budget, and Mr David Fincher behind the camera, this, I thought to myself, would likely be a slam dunk.

Lets talk about what doesn't work, first. The start of the film, for instance, is awful. Essentially, after a pointless and distracting opening sequence where CG characters crash into each other over an awful Led Zep cover, we are dragged headlong through the back story of Daniel Craig, playing a discredited journalist. This stuff is played out way too quickly, giving the impression of a film in too much of a rush. And it needs to be, because there's a lot more to go through and it doesn't really matter, hence the hurry to get it out of the way. This film is a murder mystery. Daniel Craig, now suitably discredited, is hired by a rich old guy to try and solve the murder of his grandchild, 40 years ago. He lives in a grand old house surrounded by a bunch of other grand old houses, all occupied by the family, who mostly hate each other. Now this may be my fault, but I couldn't really follow who was who and, as Daniel pieces together what happened all that time ago, what was really going on either. And with that lack of comprehension came an inevitable lack of caring. I don't care who these characters really are, and I really don't care if we find out whodunnit, or not. These people are terrible and indifferent, and we the audience pick up on that fairly quickly and reflect it back.

Now let's talk about the disturbing stuff. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is actually in an entirely different film for the first hour or so. She's a goth rebel hacker, who struggles to make ends meet as all her money is controlled by the government. Anti-social to a fault, she is first abused, then raped by her case worker in a series of awful, shocking and deeply unpleasant scenes. Of course she gets her violent revenge, and it's a mark of how far down the sewer Fincher has dragged us that the scene where she boots a giant dildo up the ass of her former rapist as he squeals in pain is likely the best part of the movie, and the part the entire audience enjoys the most. She then teams up with Daniel Craig, as his assistant and then also as his lover, and then also as his henchman, as the two piece together the most boring mystery ever. Even the fact that we end up uncovering a creepy serial killer crouched in the middle of all the tangle, isn't enough to make up for the three hours of tedium. And why, why did we have to watch a women get raped if it doesn't actually have anything to do with the plot? Does it help explain who the Dragon Tattooed girl is? Is that how we do character development, now?

I don't know exactly what happened to the director who gave us Se7en, Alien 3, Panic Room, and most important of all, The Game (one of the greatest films of all time), but this is not him. What is he doing playing around with stupid lifeless remakes? A film is meant to entertain, and this one fails miserably. One tattoo out of five.


- Peace

The Shadowy Depths

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

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

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

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

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

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