Less than meets the eye.

Conditions: Cold.


Bush commutes Scooter's sentence

Do you believe this?

WASHINGTON -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, will not be going to jail for lying in the CIA leak probe after all.

Libby was so close to being imprisoned that last Wednesday he was assigned inmate number 28301-016.

But in a highly unusual and controversial move, President George W. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month sentence after an appellate panel Monday rejected Libby's request to delay the start of his jail time while he appealed his March jury conviction. - Newsday.com

As many have now pointed out, but it bears repeating, Paris Hilton actually ended up serving more jail time than Scooter did.

So, what's the real damage here? What effects could Bush's commutation have? Joe Wilson, the husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, warned

that the message of the commutation might lead to fewer people being willing to risk their lives as covert CIA operatives. - truthout.org

So, the damage that Bush has done by commuting a buddy could well cripple what little human intelligence gathering the US government has in current sensitive areas. That's certainly not going to help anything.


Snapshot

Quick, while you've got a minute, go dump out your pockets onto your scanner and send the image here. You know, for kids. Just keep your eyes closed.



Faceyourpockets.com




CD Hole Art

For years, CD's have had holes in them. And for years, people who make labels for CD's have had to work around this problem. The center of your product, the middle of the label is a hole. That is an issue. Generally, the best approach has been to ignore it, to shape artwork and text around the hole without acknowledging the hole itself. Well, a bunch of guys have actually come up with some artwork that actually emphasizes the hole, uses it as a part of the label. Brilliant.





iamboredr.com




Uh guys, the sculpture's walking away.

This guy could be brilliant. Or, he could be an evil genius. It's a little difficult to tell. Watch his creations here:

Glumbert.com




The iPhone dissected

So, you've just bought the it-object of the year, what do you do with it? Why, take it to pieces of course. Duh.



And why would someone buy a perfectly good iPhone just to pull it apart, you say? Why, to make money of course:

Turns out that the quick way to make money on an iPhone (outside of Apple and AT&T) wasn't to flip it on eBay. It was, instead, to take it apart and figure out who made the chips inside, then buy shares in those companies.

According to Reuters, "investors flocked to the iPhone's newly unmasked parts makers." Most but not all saw an increase in their share prices. - Guardian.com

And you thought the iPhone was about listening to music and talking to people. Hah.


Film Review: Transformers

Ever since the announcement came out a few years ago that Michael Bay was going to direct the live-action Transformers film, I've felt a sense of dread over what it could mean for Bay's career. He started off full of frantic camera moves, reveling in never letting the camera sit still for a moment, and while you could tell that there was some talent going on with the characters, the story, the cinematography, and the action, oh my stars the action, it was difficult and even annoying to tell because of how jerky the camera was. But over the years and subsequent films, Michael Bay has steadily improved towards an actual straight-up Film Maker, calming down his shots and his editing, while actually getting better with atmosphere and characters. I was actually quite impressed with how solid a film The Island was. So the announcement about Transformers had me concerned. It's just big robots fighting. How can he make a cool story out of that? How can he continue to refine his calm, smooth, cool style in the face of enormous fighting robots?

Well frankly, he can't.

Transformers is everything that's wrong with the modern blockbuster, and more. It's louder than the sound the world would make if it split in two. It's bigger than every other Summer Release put together. And it's shallower than the film over your teeth. But this is no sneak attack by the pg-13 dumb-it-down brigade. Oh no. This one demonstrates proudly how dumb it's going to be from the very start. The most stereotyped voice-over in history proudly describes the beginning of time, the history of the robots and how some special energy cube went missing and ended up on Earth. I seriously thought for a moment it was a rich parody, like the opening of Team America: World Police. But then we're treated to a quick Spielbergian (the producer, natch) coming-of-age opening about a boy getting his first car and wooing the high-school prom queen. And woven in between all this, and then for the last forty minutes: Gigantic Robots Fighting.

This film is not about plot. The plot makes no sense. This film is not about characters. The characters are basically cardboard cutouts (yes, even Shia). In the end, all that's left is the action. It's pure give-them-what-they-want audience cheese. Fine. So be it. While there are some very impressive moments of gigantic robotic carnage, there's also a lot of jarringly bad moments where the robots are somehow stepping/falling/tumbling over and around the panicked humans who are running, ant-like, in circles, firing bullet after bullet at the obviously bullet-proof machines. The interactions on the whole are very good, but it may have been pushed too far or too fast, and there are moments where the C.G.-ness is suddenly apparent. Overall the action sequences are shot and edited too fast, and set so that it's very difficult to see what is happening, and to whom, especially since the robots mostly look alike.

I think it's more entertaining than the other big C.G summer movies (which isn't saying much), and Bay's still shooting an engaging film, it just doesn't really pack a punch, in the *emotional* department. It's the emotions of the characters, and their engagement with our emotions that make any film work, from drama to cartoon to action blockbuster. In the end, and to no-one's surprise, this film is too much computer, not enough human. Too much effect, not enough drama. One collapsed building out of Five.

Summer season blockbuster deathwatch score: 1/5



Epilogue: What's wrong with everyone?

I am overwhelmed by how much everyone loves this movie. What the hell is going on? Well, the general consensus is that it's stupid and shallow, and loud and exciting, so overall that's ok. And there's an awful lot of "Oh it's 'Transformers'. I mean, what were you expecting?" The hell?

Blockbuster movies used to mean quality. Jaws. Raiders of the lost Ark. Aliens. Terminator. Predator. Die Hard. The Matrix. These films are not jokes, they are well crafted, entertaining spectacles with interesting characters, engaging stories, and even a big idea or two to ponder. But things have changed. Transformers is the ultimate expression of the indifference the new generation has towards movies these days. Movies used to mean more than just eye candy, the quality of that entertainment was enriched through the filmmakers struggling to pack as much quality into every part of the story they were trying to tell, from the acting to the setting to the music, every part was refined in building that whole. Transformers is yet another modern-day excercise of an old brand given corporate backing for the purposes of selling raw spectacle in the hopes of massive profits, and nothing more. There's no character, no real peril, nothing but hollow spectacle.

But why does the audience cheer? Because of how disappointing most hollow spectacle has become. In the end, Transformers batters the audience into accepting that something good just happened, even if they couldn't quite see what it was.



End transmission.