From the Sidelines

Health 2-15-2012

2012-02-15T11:08:00.001-06:00

The sore throat started yesterday and the drainage is now terrible, which is making me a dim and irritable guy right now. It is the penalty for being with friends with small kids, so I cannot whine too much. Upping the H2O2 therapy to two glasses a day will help, hopefully.

We finally have above freezing temps and I’m wearing my thermal underwear to keep warm. Not a good sign.

At least the congestion has not gone into my chest.

Weird Al Has a Message for Everyone

2012-02-13T11:42:00.000-06:00

This is sublime.

War Drums

2012-02-11T10:38:00.001-06:00

As the world economic situation deteriorates, another problem is rising and that is the steady beat of war drums across the globe. Political, rather than economic, interests are the prime motivators as old grudges flare in some places and civil unrest lures in outside forces in others. The latest hotspot is one I did not see coming and would be ridiculous to fight a war over if it were not for changing geopolitical conditions.

Argentina is ramping up the rhetoric against Great Britain over the Falklands and it is getting more serious than any dispute over an island filled with sheep should get. After having lost the Falklands War in the early 1980’s, it appeared to be a nonissue until recently when South American countries began expanding their military arsenals. A steadily declining U.K. military is now unlikely to be able to defend their citizens living in the Falklands, so an opportunity has arisen for Argentina. Claiming the Brits are sending nuclear missiles to the area is an extraordinary claim, the kind that is usually ginned up for a war.

Another thing to consider is that they now have the backing of Brazil, which has become an economic and military regional power looking to expand their influence. There is a desire to get rid of all European influence in the area and also American influence. Throw in a presidential re-election campaign for Cristina Kirchner and things start getting restive.

While that little drama unfolds, the Obama administration is quietly preparing for war with Iran and an armed intervention in Syria much like what was done in Libya. That means bypassing Congress again and should be of concern to more people than it is. If we hit Syria, Iran will fight us since they have sent forces in to back the dictator Assad in what really has become a civil war. No matter what happens, I expect Islamic extremists to end up in control of Syria, just like Libya and Egypt.

Israel will most likely be forced to hit Iranian nuclear weapons facilities this year. Survival is an important thing to the Israelis and they need to protect themselves from the increasingly irrational Iranians. Civil unrest remains a fear in Iran and they recently cut access to large parts of the Internet in hopes of preventing more.

Asia is not exempt from all the “fun.” Continued over flights of neighboring countries territory by China is still causing tension and an arms race in the area. Their ships have been equally aggressive and have challenged Philippino sovereignty. Japan also has the Russians sending bombers over their territory as Russia tries to reestablish their might around the Kurile Islands. Oddly enough, tensions with North Korea appear to be abating or are on hold while the new regime sorts itself out.

Will any of these hotspots break out into actual fighting? I think the Middle East is the closest thing to a sure bet thanks to Iran and Syria. In the long run, Asia is building towards war, but internal stresses in China may derail that.

So why do I feel like the atmosphere is like that of the years leading up to World War I?

This Is the Droid I Was Looking For

2012-02-10T22:20:00.001-06:00

After much deliberation, the replacement for my PocketPC ended up being an unexpected bargain. This post was composed on my new iview CyPad 7" Android tablet. I am trying out the Blogger app and typing with my thumbs, which is taking a lot of getting used to. At least the touch screen works for me -- iPhones and iPads usually don,t work with my fingers.

I will write a proper review next week if I can get the latest ROM to flash. So far the camera is the only thing not working.

Odd and Ends 2-9-2012

2012-02-09T12:23:00.001-06:00

Fighting off a sinusitis flare up makes getting up and out to get a haircut more of a travail then it should be. Despite that, I survived and am no longer shaggy. In theory I am more presentable, but theories and reality are very divergent I find.

Currently I am working on HD screen captures from Captain America: The First Avenger for a review of the Blu-ray and DVD release. As I suspected, the film looks better in 2D than 3D. I cannot wait for that fad to die out again and from the way theater attendance has dropped the studios will be forced to give up within the next couple of years.

So far subscribing to Hulu Plus has been a good decision. I am finding things of interest that are not on free Hulu and have begun to dip my toe into the waters of Korean dramas. The show I started watching last night is particularly interesting because it blends a 17th century historical setting with The X-Files. If it sounds strange, that is because it is! Secret Investigation Record follows the investigation of an honest magistrate in the corrupt government trying to unravel a sighting of a mysterious glowing giant gourd flying through the sky and the disappearance of an entire village. So far it has been very good.

Silent films are another thing I have been getting more into and Hulu Plus has a good selection of classics there as well. It has been decades since I have seen Nosferatu or Phantom of the Opera and as an adult I think I will appreciate them more.

There has been controversy over the Obama administration issuing waivers to some states in regards to the No Child Left Behind standards. For once, I agree with them on something. The program has done nothing to really improve public education despite having noble intentions. As it is, I suspect we are drifting toward the Japanese model of having private schools as the only way up and out, with public schooling being a death knell to one’s prospects. That is in the very long term, unless the coming economic collapse hastens things. Our systemic education issues will not be resolved through the government, I am afraid.

I am not sure how I feel about Smith Brothers Warm Apple Pie throat drops. If it were not for the cinnamon bits in them, they probably would be disgusting. As it is, they serve to remind me how much I like cinnamon.

One has to love translations from one language to another and the misunderstandings that can be involved. In this case, I just opened a booklet to a multimedia device and the second thing listed under notes says:

Avoid strong beat and collision.

But what if I want to put some techno on it?

Causus

2012-02-07T22:10:00.001-06:00

My father and I went to the local Republican precinct caucuses tonight and I noticed that the local high school had put up signs directing the two parties to their assigned rooms. Both signs spelled caucus as “causus” much to my amusement and despair. Boy, public education is really working out well, is it not?

In a somewhat more serious vein, it was a fairly mellow caucus with only a little bit of angry debate on resolutions. Normally there is much more than what occurred. Rick Santorum was the big winner in our part of Houston County and it was not even close. This was no surprise and went the way I expected.

I will admit I was one of two “Other” votes, for I wrote in Sweet Meteor of Death aka (SMOD) to register my extreme lack of motivation/approval/endorsement of the remaining candidates. It really looks like the GOP is determined to assist in the Obama re-election efforts in every way possible and I am very weary of it.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Scandal Silver Lining?

2012-02-07T14:45:00.001-06:00

Check out The New York Times article via Instapundit for the details.

Quotes that indicate something good may have come out of this fiasco:

The events of the past couple of years, though disheartening to chronic fatigue syndrome patients, may have a silver lining: Research into the disease, much of it privately financed, is ratcheting up.

and

“The disease had languished in the background at N.I.H. and C.D.C., and other scientists had not been paying much attention to it,” said John Coffin, a professor of molecular biology at Tufts University. “This has brought it back into attention.”

Dr. Coffin, who at first supported the mouse retrovirus theory but later disputed it, noted that the illness “does seem to have characteristics that would suggest infectious origins” and that other retroviruses could be involved.

It has been a bleak thing waiting for medical science to come up with anything to deal with the illness and I stopped holding my breath for even a treatment a long time ago. It is one of many things that caused me to lose what little faith I had left in government organizations to solve problems, but only one. My hopes are that the private sector’s ability to innovate will eventually pay off though I doubt it will be in my lifetime. So little is truly understood about the immune system that the science involved can only be considered to be in its infancy.

Bleach Ep. 14: Back to Back, A Fight to the Death

2012-02-06T15:57:00.001-06:00

The duel between Ichigo Kurosaki and Uryu Ishida is finally resolved in an episode dominated by combat. However, more questions are raised than answered as events careen from serious to silly at a frenetic pace. While it may be a conclusion to a small arc, the episode feels like a setup to something bigger.

Bleach is something of a high wire act, with rapid mood swings the norm and events usually threatening to go out of control. Yes, I do believe the word “manic” applies to the series and this episode in particular. The last Quincy, Uryu brings out the worst in substitute Soul Reaper Ichigo and vice versa with an entertaining mess being the result.

With the duelists finally reunited while Karakura Town is under attack, a lot of exposition starts off things. In fact, the amount of data flowing is almost an overload as the plight of the Quincies is revealed by Rukia and Ichigo lectures his opponent. We find out why they were wiped out and just how delicate the balance between the real world and Soul Society is. Apparently there is more to being a Soul Reaper than fighting Hollows and sending earthbound souls into the afterlife than Ichigo understood.

This of course is standard shonen fare, because no motivation can be left uncovered during a fight. It does not matter how much peril everyone is in, for there is always time to argue! At least it serves to develop Ishida’s character further as he sounds less and less like a villain and more like a kid with something to prove. It is not quite a heel turn, but a fleshing out of a very complex character.

Like the other classmates around Ichigo, there are family issues involved and once again the theme of loss and grief is brought to the fore. Tragedy haunts Uryu in a similar way to Kurosaki and drives him in much the same manner. As the episode unfolds, it become obvious that these two teenagers are more alike than either would care to admit.

In a rare moment of clarity for the hero of the show, Ichigo forces the Quincy to team up with him when the numbers of Hollows attacking gets out of hand. Despite their combined might, the swarming monsters are too many. Fortunately for them, this is a Japanese cartoon which means a little girl with a rocket launcher is never far away.

Yes, you read that correctly. Ururu shows up and blasts away with a rapid fire rocket launcher. Only in Japan can this kind of thing happen.

The little girl is not alone, for Urahara has brought all his employees along to even the odds. His character is the master of last second entrances, I must say. It is a timely one, for the crack in the sky from the previous episodes is getting wider. All that foreboding attention to it earlier is about to pay off and pay off big.

Very big.

It is left to Rukia to play exposition girl, since she is unable to contribute to combat in her current condition. Thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge (aka writer-fu), we are informed that the gigantic Hollow emerging is a Menos Grande. Sounding like something from Starbucks, the creature is a huge Hollow created from consuming many smaller Hollows and is not something you want to run into when walking down a dark alley.

Or any road, for that matter – the critter is the size of Godzilla! Will Ichigo’s tendency to charge in half cocked save the day or will Uryu talk some sense into the blockhead? Will idiocy reign supreme?

I will leave the following picture for you to contemplate:

Thoughts

Episode 14 is highly uneven and feels rushed, even for an episode of Bleach. Like trying to force a two liter bottle of soda into a twenty ounce bottle, a messy spill is unavoidable. It does not help that the switches from dramatic to silly are a little too abrupt.

Still, there is character development for Uryu, combat development for Ichigo, and a growing sense of mystery to what is happening. Then there is the subplot of Rukia growing less capable and very stressed about… something. For fans of fight scenes, there is a very well choreographed one in the middle of the episode that should sate your battle lust.

But it still feels like the setup to something bigger as many loose ends are introduced.

BEWARE, HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

Never argue with a guy who has a giant sword tied to his head. I think this is a principle something everyone should live by. But not Ichigo, he is too rash for that and following any plan.

Of course, it is his sword, so I can kind of see his point.

Uryu redeeming himself so painfully to save Ichigo was a good moment and completed the metamorphosis from apparent villain to possible good guy. I liked the fact he was not out for vengeance for his grandfather’s death, but was motivated by pride for his lost race, the Quincies. If the hints given by Kubo Tite about the final arc in the manga are any indication, it looks like his pride will be heavily tested before Bleach ends.

I loved the imagery of the giant Hollow retreating by pulling the sky together like curtains. It was a very nice touch.

So you win an impossible victory against an opponent and what do you do? Celebrate! Wait, that is not a happy expression on Rukia’s face, is it? Bad things are coming, aren’t they? And just what is Urahara up to?

Going Intellectually Bankrupt

2012-02-06T08:54:00.001-06:00

One of the more interesting chapters in the Intellectual Property (IP) wars was the takedown attempt of the Pirate Bay website. While Sweden sent the creators of the site to prison, it did not really end the site. Conspiracy theories abounded about the Unites States government being involved and now it has proven to be true. It is interesting material for those fascinated by IP laws getting out of hand, but there was a talkback post by an anonymous person that lays out the real reason this is going on. Read the whole post, but this is the best paragraph:

The drive is to twist the world into accepting intellectual property as if it were something tangible. The US pushes this hard because it is the only thing they have left. The idea is not to own the methods of production, but to own the instructions for the methods of production, and make others pay for using the instructions.

In a nutshell, that is exactly the situation and why Hollywood has disproportionate say in Washington, D.C. When NAFTA was passed back in the 1990’s, it was the beginning of the end for American manufacturing and, in my opinion, nation security/stability. What we are seeing today is the final result of believing in getting money for nothing.

And that is not going to end well.

Shades of Orwell

2012-02-03T14:04:00.001-06:00

The FBI has a new flyer out suggesting people watch other Web users at internet cafes. If this isn’t playing Big Brother, I do not know what is. The vague definitions of what you should watch for cover a wide range of legitimate behaviors. For some reason I no longer mock people complaining about a growing police state.

Sigh.

Found at DSL Reports forums.

Reading

2012-02-01T12:30:00.001-06:00

Over the past couple of years, my book reading has dropped like an ACME balloon launched by Wile E. Coyote over the precipice of a cliff. Since late December, I have taken steps to rectify the situation. Step one actually predates that and was the result of my realizing just how many books I had started without finishing them. So no more reading multiple books at once!

Step two was lining up the started ones and knocking them off, except I ended up inserting Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom at the top of the order. So much for that part of the plan. It has turned out to be a compelling read that is also dryly technical, oddly enough. If I did not have so very many books to read I would get the rest of his writings.

Next up will be finishing The Confessions of Saint Augustine. It will be more of a chore, since I find him to be a rather dull writer. While autobiographies are narcissistic by definition, there is a tendency to be pedantic in this book. But I will persevere.

After that I will be inserting a gift from my paternal aunt and uncle, Founders by Ray Raphael. Little did they know it, but accounts by and of forgotten players and everyday people involved in the Revolutionary War are my favorite parts of history from the period. I am looking forward to it a great deal and it will spur me to finish The Confessions.

Following it I will finish The Histories by Herodotus, which I started years ago. Yes, it is the book that gave the name to accounts of the past and I find Herodotus to be an entertaining author.

On the spiritual side of reading, I am keeping up with at least two pages of scripture a day along with the King James version of The Apocrypha. So far I have not found much of value in the latter, but I have only begun Esdras II. I finished The Old Testament straight read through in January after many years of nibbling at it. It doesn’t get the attention it deserves these days and I think many a Christian would benefit from reading every book contained in it – as would anyone trying to understand Western law.

The more I look at my bookshelves the more I believe a Kindle would not be a good thing for me to get. Maybe when I finish off every book I own, but they will have to come up with a way to extend my lifespan for that to work out!

Tablet or eReader Time?

2012-01-30T20:11:00.001-06:00

It is with great reluctance that I have come to the conclusion that my Dell Axim’s days are numbered, simply because it is a very out of date platform. It cannot be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6 and the future is Android and iOS with their associated formats. Being cheap and hostile toward Apple, the iPad is not an option which limits my choices to something Android flavored.

But the big debate I am having with myself is whether to go for something with more functionality or with something that has an eInk display. I would love to be able to read in sunlight, but I also want to be able to keep contacts and appointments with me along with note taking. That would be more along the lines of getting a tablet than a reader.

While the Kindle Fire is pretty much a stripped down tablet, the lack of standard Android apps is an issue. Asus is coming out with a Tegra 3 quad core based tablet for $250 later this year and I wonder if that would be a better solution. I should mention that smaller is better and 6-7” screens are the desired size range.

I think I will bug one of my friends who got the Fire for Christmas and find out more about its capabilities.

Odds and Ends 1-29-2012

2012-01-29T14:28:00.001-06:00

Sitting here at home, I am only slightly annoyed about not being able to go to church today. Mainly that is because I am so tired I would not remember anything heard there anyway. Last night was worse as the week caught up to me at last.

After Tuesday’s very early expedition to retrieve the car from Madison, I was out of commission that afternoon through Wednesday. To my relief, I was able to handle another early morning expedition up to the St. Paul Temple on Thursday – only because I was not driving either way. It was very good to get to the temple again and get a well needed spiritual recharge.

Once again, I fell apart afterward and spent Friday being completely brain dead. Saturday was not much better though a test run out to see how I was doing and meet with Congressional District 1 candidate Mike Parry in Winona went well. I like his stances and hopefully he will get the GOP nomination. Politics will begin in earnest next month after everyone finds out what districts they will be in.

Unfortunately, that trip out exhausted the last reserves of energy I had. Last night was not fun because I hit that nasty little area of fatigue where I cannot sleep but am unable to do anything else too. Not even watching movies or television is possible when I get there and an attempt to watch Star Wars failed abysmally.

At the moment, I am listening to Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky soundtrack and for some reason it fits the mood I am in. When I am tired, I tend to get very grouchy and that would be how I am feeling. There is no reason to be and no target for my annoyance other than all of existence. At least I am not being discriminatory.

It is time I replaced the ancient cassettes of Der fliegende Holländer with MP3’s. The quality of Amazon’s downloads has gotten quite good and while I still prefer CD (or better), I can afford this version of it a lot more easily. According to serious opera buffs, this is the performance to have. Tomorrow I’ll purchase it, since it is the Sabbath and I do not shop on it.

I may have to do a full review of the Samsung BD-5700 Blu-ray player. I only have two features yet to try out, but it has been a terrific buy. Upscaling has lived up to its good reputation and animated material is my torture test for that. Hard contrast and lots of straight lines will show every flaw when resampled to bigger resolutions. DVD’s of Studio Ghibli films and Bleach were my choices, since the latter was not optimized for progressive scan widescreen TV’s. Both look fantastic to my surprise since I was prepared for a quality hit with Season 1 of Bleach.

A tiny USB flash drive will be ordered to enable Blu-ray live and see what that is all about. Also, I will enable my Hulu Plus account to see how well that works. Using set top boxes and Blu-ray players to access the Net still seems like a silly way to do things. My media center PC is a much better solution using dated components, but I can see price being an issue for people who have no technical expertise (or spare parts).

Squid Girl Episode 8

2012-01-29T11:25:00.001-06:00

Squid Girl faces a serious illness, discovers a new ability, and discovers the wonders of umbrellas in an uneven entry in the comedy series. While first two segments are a mixed bag, the third story redeems the episode with one of the more charming stories of the series.

Who’s a Sick Cephalopod?

Having tentacles would be very handy in my opinion, especially if they were as capable as Squid Girl’s. However, I could see them getting hurt in all sorts of accidental ways. But having one get caught in an ice shaving machine was not one I could imagine.

When a dazed and muted Ika Musame starts shaving one of her tentacle tips off and doesn’t notice, Eiko becomes concerned. Looking flushed, everybody’s favorite inkvader appears to have come down with something. Funny, I was expecting her to look green around the gills, not flushed.

Finding all the suggested ideas from the Aizawa family to be less than helpful, Squid Girl reveals that her illness is something potentially much more serious than thought. Bed ridden, delirious, and desperate her condition spirals downward.

Desperate times require desperate measures as Eiko does her best to help Ika. Help from an unlikely source is forthcoming, but is the cure worse than the illness?

Is That a New Agilllity?

Squid Girl demonstrates a new ability, that of being an art critic when it concerns sand castles. Not impressed with her critique or effort at making a better one, Takeru’s friend mocks her back and points out she has weird things on the sides of her hat. Yep, we have arrived at third grade humor here.

Only just realizing she has fins on her head makes the anthropomorphic squid wonder what they are for – especially once they start twitching. Calling in outside experts to help her figure it out, i.e. her immediate friends, is once again not very helpful.

But there are bigger fish to fry when the dad of Takeru’s friend shows up to do battle over sandcastle building. Inexplicable power ups, cheating, and more art critiques follow.

Shouldn’t You Jet an Umbrella?

Another rainy day and a need for supplies introduces Squid Girl to the wonders of umbrellas. Fascinated like a little kid, Ika marvels over the mechanisms and different kinds she sees. Smitten with the cheap vinyl umbrella given to her by Eiko, the younger girl cannot resist playing with it.

Left to her own devices while Eiko shops, Ika drifts off into a world of fantasy and fun with her umbrella, Squid Unit 01. Yes, she even names it and decides it is her most useful tool for invasion. As she daydreams about their adventures together, Squid Girl keeps adding names to it such as MK II in spoofs of mecha and other animes. Playing around in the rain never looked like so much fun.

But all good things come to an end…

Thoughts

The first two stories are mildly amusing here and there. I suspect children would find them more amusing. Fans of Sannae will be pleased as she gets a lot of time in both and masochistic slapstick abounds. It is hard to peg anything in a slice of life comedy as filler, but both stories have that aura about them – though they are adapted from the manga.

It is the last story that lingers in the memory and salvages a very uneven episode. Perhaps it is because I can remember how amazing the first umbrella I saw was and how much fun the first retractable one encountered was to play with. In this episode, a pure example of childhood innocence and fun can be found.

That awful crushing sadness of breaking something you love is also beautifully presented. Often it is the first encounter with heartbreak for a young soul and I loved how it was handled. It simply rang true, as did Eiko’s older sister method of dealing with the situation. The growing sense of family relationships between Ika and the Aizawa’s adds much to the show, elevating it to more than just a comedy. That last scene of the two was gently sweet in its humor and rang just the right note.

IP Rights Battles Are Only Beginning

2012-01-27T10:49:00.001-06:00

There seems to be a great deal of celebration over having derailed SOPA and PIPA in the U.S.A., but they are not completely dead yet. In the meantime, ACTA has been passed by the majority of the EU nations. It still has not yet been ratified. That is little comfort, for I suspect it will be ratified easily when the time comes. To get an understanding of why this is a big deal, please check out my earlier posts on it here and here.

Another blow to the free travel of information came when the Supreme Court ruled that works in the public domain can be taken out of that status and copyrighted again. So those of you who have downloaded eBooks and movies in the public domain may end up becoming law breakers in the future. This aggravates the erosion of having limited copyrights and sets them well on the way to perpetuity, despite what Justice Ginsburg wrote.

It is ironic that there is such an effort to stifle the flow of knowledge and creativity in a time when we can finally share such things quickly and easily. Innovation is dying out in large part to actions such as these. Sure it sounds warm and fuzzy to talk about helping families of celebrities who were ripped off by their managers/producers/record labels, but resting on the laurels of those who came before is lazy. In the end, only the big media companies and their puppets in government truly benefit as most copyrights will be held by large corporations, not individuals.

So while a battle has been temporarily won, the war continues. If things keep up the way they are going, a long period of cultural stagnation is ahead for us. I firmly believe that humanity needs to keep striving and creating to advance. To my eyes, we have ceased doing so over the past twenty five years and the momentum generated in the past is fading away. We need some intellectual turmoil and the best way to create that is to ideas, concepts, and collaborations bouncing around like mad. Caging those is a huge mistake.

A Not Quite Unexpected Journey

2012-01-25T12:50:00.001-06:00

While Bilbo Baggins got to go on an unexpected journey, the one I embarked on yesterday did give me some warning before hand. It involved a trek to Madison to recover the totaled Subaru Outback and get it back home to attempt repairs. Plans for assistance in driving the car fell through due to miscommunications, which meant I would have to drive the car the entire three hours plus it takes to get home.

Just one problem with that – my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome problems cause me to quickly loose awareness and concentration after about an hour and a half of driving. If I am having a good day, I can stretch that to two hours. Equipped with caffeinated soda and a lot of prayers said before and during, I managed to get home without undue incident. For that, I am supremely grateful.

So today I am barely functioning and this post took over twenty minutes to write. I will say it was not much fun driving the final leg home.

Now we have to tear into the car and see what all will need replacing. While the adjustor condemned the radiator, it appears intact and is functioning without leaking. First up for replacement will be the headlight and hood, with both looking to be major endeavors. That car will not be going anywhere soon.

Panic Has Hit the File Sharing Services

2012-01-23T11:26:00.001-06:00

So after going through my normal routine of to start the day, I decided to check on some of the tech sites to see what effect the Megaupload arrests were having on the online community. While Anonymous continues to make sporadic and ineffective attacks in retaliation, other file services are beginning to react. Filesonic has stopped allowing file sharing altogether, which means users can only upload and download their own files. Slightly less panicked, FileServe has reportedly ended their affiliate program where users were paid when they got others to join the service. As many have already commented, who needs SOPA or PIPA when the U.S. government can already reach out and have people in New Zealand arrested?

While I do not like the ease with which the international arrests were carried out at the behest of Hollywood, it was painfully obvious what these file services were created for. So I do not mourn their passing in the least. Yet I wonder what affect it will have on the legitimate file locker companies? While I am not terribly enthused about cloud based computing in general, I do use Amazon’s cloud service to back up my purchased iTunes and MP3 files. Oh and then there is Steam, which is a cloud like service that I am fond of.

I am feeling some ironic amusement though. If you went through various technology and multimedia forums in the past couple of years, the pro-pirate forces had declared bit torrenting dead and the entire future to be these file locker services. As anyone familiar with how spy and terrorist organizations operate, the easiest ones to roll up and eliminate are the highly centralized ones. That is one reason why they operate in cells. Painting big old targets on yourself is not particularly smart and that is what these companies did.

My suspicions are that we will see the file sharing sites gone or inaccessible from America in the very near future. Torrenting will increase with a move to decentralize magnet links becoming the new standard. All of this reminds me of Spy vs. Spy in Mad Magazine as Hollywood and the recording industry use the U.S. government against the pirates.

Kimi ni Todoke Volume 1 Premium Edition and Ep. 1

2012-01-20T17:32:00.001-06:00

Karuho Shiina’s beloved romance manga is adapted into a beautiful anime depicting an outcast girl’s attempts to make friends in high school. When strange feelings stir in her after meeting the most popular boy in class, Sawako finds a whole new world opening before her. But will that world accept a weird looking girl who has little in the way of social skills?

In 2005, a shojo (girl’s) manga (comic book) debuted about a shy girl falling for the most popular boy in school. It is a theme done to death in the genre, but what set Kimi ni Todoke (From Me to You) apart was the execution and attention to detail regarding the characters. Only the second series by author Shiina, it ended up becoming a smash hit and won multiple critics awards. Being a slow moving character piece, it would not have been a surprise if the anime adaptation changed things considerably. Surprisingly faithful, it not only stayed true to the story, but rendered it with such care that it became a thing of beauty.

Sadly, no U.S. streaming service picked up the anime when it debuted in the winter of 2009. But dedicated fansubbers released English subtitled copies of the TV broadcasts which in turn got a lot of word of mouth going on the Net. Realizing there really was a market for a DVD release, NIS America acquired the rights last year and planned to release a deluxe set in December. Somewhere along the line, they decided to delay, much it to the horror of all who had preordered the set. Horror turned to joy when it was announced the delay was in order to include the Blu-ray discs as well as the DVDs!

So it is my considerable pleasure to offer this review of Volume 1 of Kimi ni Todoke. The review of the premium set itself will be under the Technical section.

Episode 1: Prologue

Having read a fan translated version of the manga (I now own all of Viz Media’s volumes), it was with some apprehension that I approached the anime. Simply put, I could not envision it being adapted well. Shiina’s layouts are often densely packed with the dialogue and thoughts the same.

The opening title was promising, if very girly. Featuring a catchy and sweet pop tune by Tomofumi Tanizawa, it caught the main character’s personality well. Animation quality was top notch while showing a great deal of whimsy. But it did not prepare me for what was to come.

Nobody expects a lavishly painted watercolor school bathroom for one thing. I had my first inkling that extreme care was put into the production right about then. Two girls are doing what high school girls do so well, which is talking about other people behind their backs. In this case, the duo discuss another girl they find scary, Sadako. If the name sounds familiar, that was the ghost girl in Ringu, the Japanese horror film adapted into The Ring.

Right on cue, she shows up to scare the girls. Instead of being out to steal their souls, the creepy looking girl is just trying to be helpful. Painfully shy, her attempts to be friendly are perceived as hostile. Rejected, we see her in chibi (child) form being very hurt by this and find out it is normal for her. We also find out her real name is Sawako Kuronuma, not Sadako.

I should mention that this anime has a lot of switching back and forth between normal and silly caricatures. This takes some getting used to, since it is done to convey one of two things: comedy or a character’s emotional viewpoint. In this episode, much of it is about how Sawako (Mamiko Noto) views herself.

The next morning on the way to school, the outcast girl spots a boy named Shota Kazehaya (Daisuke Namikawa) with his friends. Sparkling bubbles surround him in her vision and she idolizes him, wishing she was more like him.

Or so that is what she thinks she feels. It is clear that Sawako is not fully in touch with her emotions. But she does have a good reason to think highly of the boy. At the beginning of the school year he actually spoke to her and thanked her for helping direct him to the high school. No one had ever done that before. Tellingly, this chance encounter took place under blossoming cherry trees. Unable to even get “good morning” out in reply to him in the present, she admires the smiling boy from afar.

This is despite being in the same class and the school year nearing its ending. Events in class reveal that Kazehaya knows who she is and all the work she has been doing as class representative. His attempt to intervene on her behalf flusters the girl into an awkward defense of the duties. Emitting an aura not unlike a psycho’s, the intense girl is secretly pleased by this revelation.

Things get complicated when an embarrassing situation arises. Determined to set things right, Sawako is shocked to find an opportunity to speak with the object of her idolization. Kazehaya is surprised to find out she hero worships him and is a bit flustered by it. Continuing a middle school habit of helping out those ignored by others, he talks her into coming to a test of courage for the class. This is a Japanese tradition of going out into the night to someplace spooky to see who panics.

Overhearing two other classmates talking about how “Sadako” would make a great ghost at the test, Sawako approaches them. Soon a scheme is hatched to liven things up at the class social event by Ayane Yano (Miyuki Sawashiro) and Chizuru Yoshida (Yuko Sanpei). For once, Sawako’s creepy appearance is an asset!

Little does she know that her performance will get her another chance to talk to Kazehaya. While she does not pick up on his signals to her, we do and so do the other girls. Mister popularity loses his cool and becomes easily embarrassed around Sawako, which is something for them to needle him about. It is an endearing scene with the two alone together and neither knowing how to handle the other.

Fallout from the test of courage is not so sweet and when the boy attempts to defend Sawako from their classmates things reach an ugly head. Will the shy girl be able to explain things? Or will she have to go back to her life of isolation and loneliness?

Thoughts

Kimi ni Todoke is an absolutely beautiful anime. The character designs are a little less awkward than most and I think that impression is mainly due to all the characters actually looking Japanese. You will not find blue eyes, pink or green hair, skimpy clothing, or huge bouncing breasts like you do in most anime. Instead there is a normality to the characters that serves them and the story well.

The soundtrack is just as pretty, fitting the story and moods perfectly. Gentle, sweet, and occasionally sad it never detracts from what is shown. SENS Project did a fantastic job here and deserve kudos. Since I already wrote about the opening theme, I’ll cover the end song “Paper Airplanes” by Chara. I did not like it, for it is the kind of music teen girls like that I cannot stand. So I am not the guy to ask about the quality there.

But what about the story, you ask? Well, it is formulaic on the surface, but manages to avoid being boring or completely predictable due to a sense that the characters are real people. It is very strange to write that about a cartoon, but it is that ability to make you care about Sawako, Kazehaya, and the other characters that makes Kimi ni Todoke something special.

As a first episode, it is mildly amusing at first then progressively gets more serious and becomes emotionally involving. Though it is a setup to the main story, what happens feels important and has a self contained arc in it. The ending is endearing and, dare I write it again, beautiful.

The voice actors are terrific at handling all the many moods of the show, from comedy to teary misery. Mamiko Noto’s soft voiced Sawako is completely believable and anchors the series. Playing opposite her is Daisuke Namikawa and his Kazehaya is a welcome change from most male anime leads. Neither a blowhard or a wimp, he is a genuine nice guy with a backbone. I find it strange that one of the best male characters in the anime is found in a shojo story, but that is the way it is.

It is also why this is a rarity, a romance anime that can be recommended to guys despite not having explosions or fights. One of my friends admitted to shedding “manly tears” over the show, which amused me. The characters are believable, grounded in reality, and very likeable.

I recommend Kimi ni Todoke for teens and up. Adults who like a good story and a pure of heart romance will like this a great deal. Those who have felt like outcasts and are shy will find much to identify with as well.

For me, this is one of my top three animes of all time, so I cannot sing its virtues enough. Suffice it to say that it radiates goodness and makes one want to have more faith in humanity.

Technical

NIS America went all out on this premium edition. While pricey at over $50.00, it is worth every penny. Encased in a large cardboard slip case, it contains two DVD cases and a hardcover book.

The slip case is made of thick cardboard and has nice prints of Sawako and Kazehaya on one side, and Chizuru, Sawako, and Ayane on the other. It is quite large and you will not be able to fit it into normal DVD sized shelves.

Volume 1 only has half of season one on its discs and they are spread out across two DVDs and two BDs. Disc One of the DVD has episodes 1-6, while the BD has episodes 1-8. Both have the OD and ED in clean versions. Disc Two of the DVD has episodes 7-12 and the BD episodes 9-12.

The hardcover book, titled “My Memories” is ostensibly a scrap book put together by Sawako and features her thoughts along with color captures from the series. Special attention is shown to the lovely painted backdrops, much to my delight. It also is a clever episode guide and has complete credits in the back.

So that covers all the goodies included in the set and NIS America promises that Volume 2 will have the same treatment. Since they have announced they will release Season 2 as well, I have to assume it will get a premium edition.

With so many episodes packed on each disc, I admit I was concerned about image quality. Not terribly so, since improvements in algorithms over the years have yielded smaller, but better looking transfers in Funimation’s re-releases, for instance.

I needn’t have worried. Both the DVD and Blu-ray versions look great, especially the latter. Despite shoving eight episodes on the first BD disc, each episode is 4.7 GB and with only a stereo soundtrack that means the space was used for very high image quality. On a 1080p HDTV the show looks spectacular and I found myself admiring the background art even more than usual. HD and animation are a match made in heaven in this case.

Audio is clear and excellent, but not top of the line when it comes to the Blu-ray version. Since this is not an action story there is no real need for surround sound, so the soundtrack is stereo LPCM on the BDs and Dolby Digital on the DVDs. So do not expect your high end receiver to get a sonic workout.

Oddly, the menu’s are completely different between the two formats. Both are easy to navigate, but only the Blu-ray one is animated.

Since this is a subtitled only release, the quality of the translations and presentation need to be covered. Here the Blu-ray is better in text rendering and I was pleased how unobtrusive it was. The English translations are very good and differ somewhat from Viz Media’s for the manga. Nothing earth shattering, but fans will pick up on it.

In summation, this is a superb release of a true gem. If you are a fan of the manga or anime it is a must have. With no bargain release announced, this may end up the only way it will ever be available in the States, so keep that in mind. To me, the price was worth it and is actually a steal given all the goodies included. Thank you, NIS America for taking a chance on Kimi ni Todoke!

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

Oh that ending. I remember sampling the manga at random to get an idea of what Japanese girls liked in comic books. It was different from what I had seen aimed at boys and adults, that was for sure. While the story did not grab me right away, I decided to finish the first chapter.

When it hit the part where Kazehaya was to be punished for failing the test of courage by having to date “Sadako” for a week, I rolled my eyes at how formulaic it was. But as the popular boy defended her rather than demur or try to protect his reputation, I started paying attention. Then Sawako’s desperate bid to clear up the “misunderstanding” and her subsequent breakdown the next day, I realized this might be something special.

That scene of her crying as she faced going back to the her lonely life hit home for me, since I was an outcast for most of my school life. So when she encountered Kazehaya waiting for her outside the school with the apology from the class it got to me.

It is during their conversation where Sawako shows how little she really understands what is going on that we finally get to see things from the boy’s viewpoint. The flashback to when they first met reveals that it was not just special to her, but to him as well. Seeing her true smile is what got his attention back then. This is no rescue mission, Kazehaya was smitten and now his task is finding a way for his feelings to reach her. “Reaching you” is an alternative translation of the title and what the story is all about.

I like that Sawako is no great beauty and somewhat strange looking as far as shojo style art goes. But when she genuinely smiles, she becomes radiant. I have known a few women like that and I can say that it is a hugely attractive trait. The series eventually delves into this a little later on.

A very quick bit flashes by at one point in the episode and it is as Chizuru and Ayane walk away into the forest. It is lifted from further into the manga and is Chizuru’s personal code: Obligation. Humanity. Virtue.

While amusing once you get to know her character, I think those three words describe Kimi ni Todoke very well. At its core, it is a story filled with goodness and decency, which is something modern day culture is lacking. It is so refreshing to find something with such a good heart in modern entertainment.

The Problem with Newt

2012-01-20T15:58:00.000-06:00

Articles: The Myth of 'Newt The Great Debater'

John Ziegler lays it out like it is and I imagine he will take a lot of flack for it. One of the many problems with the extended primary debate season is that it has fooled conservatives and libertarians into thinking they are the only audience. The last I checked, 40% of the country consider themselves "independents" and they will decide who gets the Oval Office after 2012. People need to remember how easy it was for people to hate Gingrich the last time he was in the national spotlight. Toxic does not even begin to describe how bad it will get if he gets the nomination. While I have problems with Santorum and Romney, I would take either of them in a heartbeat over the walking and talking train wreck called Newt.

Stop SOPA and PIPA!

2012-01-18T09:17:00.001-06:00

Contact your local Senator and Congressman to let them know you support free speech on the Web. Allowing web sites to be taken down by the government simply based on a complaint from someone else about copyright violations is ridiculous. The whole idea of the world wide Web is to allow linking to other sites to share information and these bills would jeopardize the very structure of the Internet.

The Wrong Box (1966)

2012-01-17T21:04:00.001-06:00

Featuring an impressive group of actors, this dark farce manages to be both satirical and whimsical at the same time. Set in the Victorian era, it is a classic comedy of errors involving a corpse, a box, and an eccentric family by the name of Finsbury. Expect bizarre situations, innocent romance, scheming relatives, bird eggs, and the best butler ever in this very amusing movie resurrected through Warner Bros. Archive’s made on demand DVD service.

Every family has at least one film that somehow becomes a tradition to watch. In my family’s case, one of those films is The Wrong Box, an unfairly obscure comedy from the 1960’s. Long before I ever had a chance to see the movie, I had heard all about it and memorized quotes from it. It would not be until the 1980’s before I got to see it on cable TV. Thankfully, it lived up to the hype from the family!

For years I had looked for it on DVD to no avail. But thanks to Warner Bros., I now have the movie and it is worth the premium price I paid for it. It was a pittance to bring back some cherished family memories. Popping the DVD into the Blu-ray player, I wondered what the quality of the picture would be. To my delight, the very 60’s animated opening credits looked great as John Barry’s whimsical score started and so I settled in to watch this deeply, wrongly funny movie.

The opening sequence goes from quietly sly humor to the blackest possible even before we get a chance to meet the main cast. Being very English to its core, the film starts us with a pompous lawyer explaining what a “tontine” is to a group of bored schoolboys and their fathers. In short, a tontine is a lottery to win a bundle of money put together by the bettors, in this case the princely sum of 1,000 pounds sterling put in for each child. But what makes this particular pot interesting is the fact that it goes to the last survivor. You lose by dying and win by being the last man standing.

As the years go by, the cream of the upper class of Great Britain succumb to death in varied ways. Most of those ways are avoidable and would place the deceased in the finals of the Upper Class Twit of the Year contest. All of them are funny and some are outright hilarious -- with the knighting ceremony being the best of all. In the aftermath of that particular incident, Queen Victoria (Avis Bunnage in a perfectly performance) is left to say, “Oh… We are frightfully sorry, Sir Robert.” One of many quotes I was taught as a child.

As the deaths rack up impressively, it narrows down to two survivors who happen to be brothers and the film really begins.

First, we are introduced to Michael Finsbury played by Michael Caine who was fresh off of having a hit spy movie, The Ipcress File. He is a kindly and none too bright lad studying medicine, which is a good thing given the health of his grandfather, Masterman Finsbury (John Mills). Cranky, condescending, and on his death bed, Masterman wishes to see his brother after many years of not speaking to each other. Forty years to be precise.

Meanwhile, a pretty lass walks by the window and catches the eye of Michael. Seeing her is enough to fog his glasses in one of many subtle sight gags strewn about the movie. Adding to the peculiar flavor of the film is the use of ornate placards reminiscent of silent movies. In this manner the audience is informed that said girl is worshipped by the medical student.

As it turns out, she lives next door. You see, she is also his cousin for Masterman’s brother lives there. Yes, they have not spoken or seen each other in forty years despite living mere feet apart. Having been dispatched to deliver the message, Michael finds it difficult to get into the door at first, since the girl is very paranoid and none too bright herself. But succeed he does and that presents us with my favorite placard of the flick:

I think there can be no doubt that I have a British sense of humor, can there?

Heavily repressed sparks fly between the two once the door is opened and the beginnings of a sweet, but entirely daft, romance are evident. Also evident is that The Wrong Box is out to skewer and parody every Victorian more it can. When is the last time you saw a movie that built romantic tension between a couple with a simple handshake? The lovely Nannette Newman’s performance as the airy Julia is simply wonderful and lights up the screen every time she appears.

It turns out Uncle Joseph (Ralph Richardson) is away in Bournemouth with her other cousins, Morris and John. These two stalwart examples of the upper crust are portrayed by the comedy team of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Always funny, the two settle into their roles effortlessly, with Moore chasing the ladies (any he lays eyes on, in fact) and Cook being an extreme prude obsessed with eggs. The telegram about Masterman being near death delights the two far too much. The prospect of obtaining 100,000 pounds can do that to a person. Not that I have ever had the experience.

Uncle Joseph makes his appearance, sneaking a smoke while his nephews are not looking. That does not last long as the cynically doting Morris and John bundle him off to the train for London. There the pedantic lover of trivia escapes his charges and ends up in a car with a serial killer/compulsive knitter. It is not clear who is in greater danger, for Uncle Joseph could talk the ear off of a yak while believing he was entertaining the poor creature.

Sneaking off for another smoke launches a series of errors, ranging from a train wreck to a very bad case of mistaken identity. There is also skirt chasing during and after all this madness, since John cannot restrain himself. But trouble arises when Morris mistakes the body of the Bournemouth Strangler for his uncle. It will not do to lose the tontine, so extreme measures must be taken.

Also, there must be nose touching for no reason at all. And walking in circles.

Some of the comedy is truly absurd and must be witnessed to be appreciated. Peter Cook always excelled at this, bless him. He was perfectly cast as the one Finsbury with at least a semi-functioning brain.

Leaving his dimwitted brother to handle shipping the body to London, Morris decides to personally reconnoiter the Finsbury residence. No, not his Finsbury residence, the other one. There he is the epitome of insincerity as he attempts to ingratiate himself with his cousin and Peacock, the butler. Actually, Morris thinks the doddering old man is Masterman in another case of mistaken identity.

I have to say Wilfrid Lawson’s performance as Peacock is my favorite in the movie. Often the best lines are given him, or perhaps it is his delivery that makes them stand out so. My favorite out of them is his response to Michael’s query about a statue they sold to a wealthy woman being a fraud. “Life is a fraud, Master Michael,” he sadly states in a voice dripping with weariness and sadness. Delivery is everything and deliver he does.

Back at the Finsbury residence, the other other Finsbury residence, Julia is having something of a repressed awakening after having met Michael. Here the Victorian culture is mocked rather savagely and it is most amusing. Well, not to Morris, he finds anything even remotely suggestive horrifying.

Did I mention the statue was being returned? So now we have two shipments, one to each Finsbury residence, which happen to be next to each other, in the process of coming to London. Now the title begins to make sense…

A touching family reunion occurs when Uncle Joseph sneaks back into town to see his brother. Or it would be touching if Masterman could just wrap his fingers around the boring old man’s throat. Harsh words are exchanged and objects fly as murder is attempted fruitlessly.

While familial bonds are renewed and re-severed, Morris pays a visit to a seedy doctor to obtain a faked death certificate. Much to his frustration, Doctor Pratt (Peter Sellers) is a barely functioning shell of a man. Surrounded by cats, the pickled fallen physician is fascinating to watch as he attempts to comprehend what is said to him. Sellers gives a memorable performance in this small role, so memorable that many people remember the movie because of him.

I grew up hearing my mother often repeating Pratt’s best line, “…I was not always as you see me now.” What makes the line so sublime is the hint of tragedy to the not so good doctor’s plight, with just enough to make the humor bite. He radiates sad resignation which makes him a perfect foil for Cook’s oily and impatient Morris.

With all plot points now in motion, the movie charges ahead at full steam, but fortunately does not wreck like the trains. More mistakes are made, romance hesitatingly blooms, and a final battle for the tontine is fought by the Finsbury’s against the Finsbury’s. Personally, I rooted for the Finsbury’s to win and you should too.

Thoughts

The Wrong Box is extremely silly and that is a good thing in my book, for I believe silliness is a virtue. The 60’s were filled with many loopy comedies, so it took something special to stand apart from the pack. In this case, it is the solid acting by the vast cast. Even the smallest of parts is played to the utmost, lending a vibrancy to the production.

The main cast shines even more, which should not be a surprise given they came from the best of several generations of actors in Britain. Mills and Richardson represented the old guard, with Caine, Moore, and Cook being the young up and comers. Bridging the gap was Peter Sellers, famous for The Goon Show radio comedy and Pink Panther films.

Having not read the original Robert Louis Stevenson novel it was based on, I cannot comment on how faithful the story is. What I can say is that the script is witty and wry while using every comedy weapon in the arsenal to great success. Managing to be both mean spirited and charming at the same time is a nifty trick, to say the least.

John Barry’s soundtrack merits more comment, for it is lovely and filled with whimsy. It is the perfect compliment to the images flashing by on screen and a bit of a departure from most of his soundtracks. Light and comedic, it never sounds a wrong note.

There is no rating given for the movie, but I would put it in the mild PG area, for much of the innuendo will go completely over the heads of children. Said children will find the slapstick and ludicrous situations funny, while adults will catch all the sly jabs.

I recommend The Wrong Box to everyone who likes a good farce, appreciates British humor, and finds repressed romances entertaining.

Technical

Warner Bros. Archives made this rarity available starting in April 2011 and thankfully it is one that they remastered. Due to that, the picture is excellent and only has a few blemishes here and there. Colors are vibrant and not the least bit muddy, despite the DVD only being a single layer. Helping is the fact there are no menus, chapters, or extras on the disc. That left all the space used for the movie itself.

The aspect ratio of the movie is advertised as being 1.66:1, but the actual ratio is 1.84:1 (1.85:1 is normal). I do not know if this is a mistake on the website or if the movie was letter boxed when remastered. It does not look cropped or stretched when looking at the placards and credits. Whatever the case may be, it still looked great on my 40” HDTV.

Sound is nice and clear. It is in Dolby Digital with the original mono being duplexed to a stereo signal, but not true stereo. Nary a complaint can be made about it as all dialogue is easily heard.

The made on demand disc itself is very generic looking. By generic, I mean1980’s generic packaging, with it being white with black lettering. The DVD case is plastic with a custom printed cover with the title and a shrunken movie poster for the front. The back has a cropped shot of Moore and Cook, plus a description of the movie along with the normal industry symbols and copyrights. Nothing fancy, but better than I expected.

I am very pleased with this made on demand DVD and plan to get at least a couple more films from Warner Bros. Archive in the future.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

I found the entire scene revolving around Julia’s seeing Michael’s exposed arm hilarious. It took the Victorian prudishness to an insane level and led to one of the better exchanges of dialogue. When Michael voiced the concern that their children would be idiots, it turned out they are both adopted, so he should have figured out it wasn’t a problem in the first place. It’s hilarious.

Sorry Michael, but your children will still be idiots and it has nothing to do with blood relation issues.

When the body is discovered, the argument over who should take the fall for the murder is actually quite sweet. Both Peacock and Michael show themselves to be good eggs, the kind Morris would never collect. I love Peacock in this scene.

A staple of 1960’s comedies was ending the movies with a wacky chase. Here we are treated to something of a spoof of that involving horse drawn hearses. It is very Pink Panther like. Another hallmark of the era was closing a film with all the cast fighting with each other and we get something similar when the police try to sort things out at the funeral.

The mayhem continues as the credits roll and with a widescreen version finally available, I noticed Michael Finsbury and Julia Finsbury (soon to be Julia Finsbury) walking off hand in hand. They may be idiots, but they are nice idiots so I enjoyed that.

But the movie does leave one burning question unresolved. Why does Hitler have a cameo in the movie?

Wikipedia, Minecraft, Craigslist, and Reddit Go Black Tomorrow

2012-01-17T13:42:00.000-06:00

While it is only the English language version of Wikipedia going black to protest SOPA and PIPA, it will not go ignored by millions of users there and at the other sites participating. WARNING: the link will have a video start up automatically, but the text also covers the details.

It will be interesting to see how much this affects things. I have to say that Dick Costolo of Twitter has it very wrong from reading that quote in the article. Of course, Hollywood types live and die by Twitter these days, so I am not surprised by his stance. I do not have a way of blacking out my blog so that will not happening here. Instead I'll let my posts opposing SOPA and other IP "protections" speak for themselves.

Ding Dong, the SOPA Bill Is Dead

2012-01-16T12:42:00.001-06:00

Some good news that Eric Cantor has killed the bill in the House after a weekend where the author, Lamar Smith, started backing away from it and the White House came out in opposition. The latter shows what use an election year can be for activists to derail unpopular legislation. I highly doubt this positive outcome would have happened otherwise.

I hope the Senate version dies as well.

Health 1-16-2012

2012-01-16T12:37:00.001-06:00

Burned out from the weekend, which means it was a good weekend. It is odd living a life that seems to play out as a reverse of most people’s. Most await the weekend to recover from the week and I await the week to recover from the weekend.

Crossword puzzle was longer than my usual, but within acceptable limits. Audiosurf, however, did not go well. Simply cannot concentrate properly and actually had problems keeping my eyes open. Today is also not a good pain day.

For the past week I have moved to using my left thumb to control the game on my Xbox 360 controller in an effort to strengthen it. Since late summer, the thumb has been stiffening and snapping, not just popping and alternates between a dull ache and sharp pain. So far, so good in strengthening it but have miles to go yet. Pain and discomfort have lessoned after seven days with flexibility starting to return.

Winter Pays a Visit and Blog Renovations

2012-01-12T15:57:00.001-06:00

Crystalized water keeps falling from the sky, blown about in the well chilled air. Between that and the cold water to the bathroom repeatedly freezing, I have to surmise Old Man Winter has decided to pay us a visit. Now if I could only find the adapter I need to plug in the space heater fan to aim down the crawlspace! It has been a mild winter so far and it is no surprise that we are not getting off scot free.

I have been tweaking the layout and features of the blog again. Certain gadgets have recently become available that I think will help people navigate and explore the posts. At least, I hope that is the end result. After over five years of blogging here, I only just discovered how to insert breaks in long posts. Yeah, the feeling of being a real genius completely avoids describing how that made me feel.

Check out the top visited posts on the right hand sidebar. Also now there are a list of the most used tags on my posts. If you want to share a post somewhere else, check out the bottom of each one. Linking it to your Facebook, Twitter, or blog account should be easy now.

Meanwhile, things have moved ahead somewhat on the car. We’ve scraped up enough money to buy it back from the insurance company and now have to figure out how to get it back home since it is now over one hundred miles away. Having depleted all our money on this, it will be a long time before we can buy the needed parts for it and it will be many months before it runs again. But it is the only way we can afford a vehicle, I am sorry to say.

An unexpected movie will be the subject of my next review thanks to a make on demand service that will also be part of the essay. It is one near and dear to the immediate family alive and dead. That last sentence sounds awkward, doesn’t it? It happens when you have a very small family.

Regaining Some Momentum

2012-01-10T23:16:00.001-06:00

Yesterday the last couple of weeks finally caught up to me with a vengeance. The night before I started shutting down physically and Monday I was not up for doing a thing. This is actually a good thing, because of how much I did before hitting the wall and how long it took to do so. Very encouraging, in fact.

At least I got my first Area 88 review up tonight, though it took multiple days to write. It and hopefully another series will be added to my rotation of filler reviews in-between movies and more serious matters. I’m starting to feel like I am getting my feet back under me for the first time since visiting Indiana between Christmas and New Years. That is more than can be said for the GOP presidential contenders not named Romney.

Finally caught the new Sherlock Holmes film featuring Robert Downey, Jr. Well, it is new to me. It was a pleasant surprise and played like an alternate history version of the characters. Nothing brilliant but very entertaining. One odd issue I had with the Netflix DVD was that it was in 16:9 format, not 1.85:1. Flipping through all the TV picture modes and the Blu-ray player settings verified this. Is there a new version of “pan and scan” aka fullscreen on some DVD’s now?

Before the holidays took over, I had started watching Stargate: Atlantis from the pilot on. Only tonight did I remember that and resumed watching my DVDs. It is like watching it for the first time again due to the new HDTV. I found myself marveling at the sets due to the hugely increased picture size. Hard to believe it debuted in 2004 because it has held up very well.

Things are not going well on the car front. Not well at all. The likelihood of getting the Subaru back and attempting to repair it is dwindling, though my father refuses to give up hope. With it being in a salvage yard in Madison, the odds are against it. Not being able to afford getting a used car is just another complication.

Not exactly an auspicious start to the year. Something has to go right eventually.

Area 88 (2004) Target: 01 Treacherous Skies, Ep. 1: Sky Blue

2012-01-10T16:30:00.001-06:00

Adapted from one of the first manga’s to be imported into the United States, this somber and contemplative anime about mercenary pilots fighting in a civil war is not your usual cartoon. While filled with many action sequences, character development dominates the story when a mysterious photo journalist comes to airbase Area 88 within the war torn country of Aslan. Dogfights and death rule the sky while men’s souls are broken under a pitiless sun.

Years ago, Netlix suggested this series to me when I was investigating anime in an attempt to understand some of the teens at my church. It looked silly, but I thought “Hey, why not?” and added it to my queue. When it arrived, I cannot say I was eager to watch it, but there was nothing else to watch so into the DVD player it went.

Opening sequences and themes usually set the mood for an anime series (or live action for that matter) and the techno remix of a Bach fugue that opens this promised a lot of action and excitement. Mission (Fuga) by angels is the name of it and it is pretty good for that kind of thing. Pieces of action flew by in rapid succession and so I expected a Top Gun style series without much depth. Boy was I wrong about that. Very wrong.

Area 88 starts off moodily, with a photographer going through black and white photos of aircraft and pilots. There was a film noir feel to it, though it had nothing in common with the visual aspect of that genre. That got my attention because it told me this might be something different than I had seen before.

Keep an eye open for a few anachronisms. Since the show is clearly set in the early 1980’s, they will stand out. Can you find one above?

Pondering one photo of a young pilot, the photographer wondered if he was still flying in the desert sky. With that, a jump back in time happens and we see that pilot, Shin Kazama, flying in an F-8E Crusader. An F-8?! Talk about a classic to aviation enthusiasts and a lesser known fighter to the public. Now my attention was fully engaged.

There was little explanation given for what is going on, but Shin receives orders to intercept a trio of enemy planes over a desert. They turned out to be MiG-17’s and a thrilling dogfight that could have been out of the Vietnam War follows. It is well executed, though I have to point out Crusaders carried their AIM-9 Sidewinders on fuselage mounted rails, not on the wing pylons. Sorry, I build historically accurate scale models and this sticks out like a sore thumb to me. Fortunately, I am the forgiving type on errors like this since so few know the subject matter in the entertainment world.

Meanwhile, elsewhere an UH-1D Huey carrying the photographer from before approaches Area 88, a remote airbase. We find out the man is particularly interested in the Japanese pilot there, which makes sense as he is from the same country. Another thing we discover is that he is a cheapskate when it comes to bribing people. One dollar? Really?

Remote only begins to describe the desolate location nestled between rocky ridges in the desert. It can be said that locations add character to movies and here is a case where it nearly becomes a character in its own right as the series progresses. Area 88 is chaotic as a myriad of jet fighters and attackers launch on a mission. Aviation buffs will have fun picking out all the various types being used, including such rarities as Saab J-35F Draken fighters from Sweden.

Being a base full of mercenaries, an odd assortment of characters are there for the photographer to meet. Escorted by Kim, a far too young boy to be the pilot he is, some appalling facts of life there are revealed. The worst has to be the 20% casualty rate and next is that the pilots have to pay for everything there. Fuel, ammunition, bombs, and planes are all on their own tab.

Revealing his name to be Makoto Shinjou, the journalist finally meets his subject of interest, Shin. It is a brief and wary meeting, for (the blond and blue eyed!?) Japanese pilot does not trust the newcomer. Hearing the ensuing thoughts of Makoto musing about the similarities of their names showed a contemplative side to the series that I was not expecting.

There is an attitude of impatience and recklessness about the mercenaries. Embodying this is Greg, who is an A-4 Skyhawk pilot who is like a mad bear. Landing a damaged bird, he pauses only to dump alcohol on his shrapnel damaged head before jumping in another jet to continue the mission. Of course this is perfect picture material for the eager photojournalist.

So is the crash landing of another Skyhawk which has a much worse outcome. This sets up a confrontation between the pilots and the photographer that nearly costs him his life. This is a rough place and the base it is not the safest place for someone who makes his money off of the pain of others.

As night falls, all the pilots are assembled for a strike against rebel air defenses. A draconian $5,000 fine will be imposed on anyone not participating in the exceedingly dangerous task of taking out surface to air missiles (SAMs). Only Shin and his friend Mickey can afford to skip out, which they do. With the risky night time mission underway, a sudden crisis erupts at the base. Can Shin and Mickey save the base and will Makoto get the photograph he came for?

Thoughts

Sky Blue is a typical setup episode, but one that manages to have enough self contained drama to avoid being slow moving. In fact, a great deal happens besides setting up plot points. Much of the structure is that of a mystery, with shady characters abounding and an aloof protagonist in Kazama, who broods over a mysterious pink haired woman.

Though filled with action sequences, a good deal of time is spent on character development. This is a thoughtful story about men at war and signs that not all is not right with Shin are already being shown. Despite the setting being in the desert, there is a strange claustrophobic feeling to all the proceedings. It is quite a contrast to the dogfights in the air, which are spectacular.

Something to note is that this is not a story for kids. While not going past the PG rating, the plot is aimed at older teens and adults. As I wrote before, there is a film noir attitude to the episode. An exception to this is the young boy, Kim, who flies a Sea Harrier FRS. 1. Unrealistic in a sea of realistic characters, I cannot help but think he was created for younger readers of the original manga.

Also unrealistic is Shin Kazama’s appearance. Here we have an “Aryan” looking blond who is supposed to be Japanese. In the original manga and OVA series, he was dark haired. Why they changed this is beyond me. But then again, the woman he keeps seeing in his memories has pink hair. And then there is his hair covering one eye while flying… Ah, those wacky anime character designs! I complain about it because the rest of the show is grounded in reality, at least compared to most anime.

When I first watched this episode years ago, it grabbed me and surprised me greatly. Watching it again after sampling more anime, it stands out even yet. It is the kind of show you can introduce to people who would never watch anime otherwise.

Area 88 is one of my top three anime shows, along with Fractale and Kimi ni Todoke. Three very different stories and genres, but all tied for number one on my list. So consider it a must see recommendation.

Technical

In 2005, the now defunct ADV Films issued the Area 88 television series on four DVD’s during the hey day of anime in the United States. I’ll be reviewing the DVD’s themselves with the first episode of each. If I am not mistaken, it has been reissued, but these are still available new and for a pittance. I spent around $12 including shipping from a liquidator on eBay.

Disc one is titled Target: 01 Treacherous Skies and the copy I bought included the cardboard slipcase for the entire set. An insert in the DVD case has translated interviews with Takehito Koyasu (Shin Kazama) and Shinichiro Miki (Makoto Shinjo). It is clear they enjoyed the serious nature of the scripts and working on the show.

ADV did a tremendous job with the release and the quality is superb throughout. The video quality is excellent and presented in anamorphic widescreen that scales up very nicely. Oddly, there are slim black letterbox bars on the left and right on the episodes themselves, but not on the extras. Colors are well saturated and show off the money spent on the production.

Sound is equally excellent, with Dolby 2.0 for the original Japanese track and full 5.1 for the English dub. The dub itself is not bad, but nowhere as good as the original. As for the soundtrack, I will be doing a separate review of it in the future, but it is an eclectic mix of genres that sets the moods of the various scenes well.

The DVD menu is very clever and portrays part of the control panel of a fighter jet, complete with the sound of a jet engine spooling up.

Extras

Target: 01 Treacherous Skies has quite a few extras. ADV skimped on nothing on this release. Included are:

Interview with Isama Imakaka (Director) and Hiroshi Ohnogi (Screenplay) – this is great fun and Ohnogi is quite the interesting character. Be warned that there are a lot of spoilers as they go into great depth on the making of Area 88. Much is explained about why things were changed from the manga and about the original characters created. The most striking comment was from the writer about how glad he was to write a quietly tasteful story in an era of half naked girls in anime.

Production Sketches – A short video of the character designs.

Clean Opening – Both opening title sequences are shown without all the credits in the way. Very nice and shows just how well done they were.

Clean Closing – Same as above, but not as impressive due to the animation being mostly static. If you like pink hair blowing in the breeze, this is for you. The song is great, though.

Aircraft Specs – On this disc, profiles of Shin’s F-8E Crusader and Kim’s Sea Harrier FRS. 1 are shown in a slide show. Complete stats are given including weapons load outs.

Character Bios – Once again Shin and Kim are featured, with the addition of Makoto. Be aware of spoilers from further on in the series.

ADV Previews – PG-13 previews of other series ADV put out.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

Makoto watching the moth flutter around the light bulb in his room seems to be a metaphor for his quest. The big question is will he get burned? His nearly suicidal attempt to get the picture of Shin possibly dying shows how utterly reckless he is. Perhaps he does belong with the mercenaries at Area 88 after all, since it gains him a grudging acceptance from Shin and Mickey.

Mickey’s F-14A seems out of place with the more readily available aircraft shown at the base. Being creative, I can explain it away as being a stolen Iranian Tomcat. More interesting is the fact that Mickey doesn’t fly with an RIO in the back seat. Since he doesn’t have any AIM-54 Phoenix missiles and the combat is all within visual range, I suppose it does not matter.

I find it intriguing that Shin’s expression changes so dramatically between the two openings. The change is something of a spoiler, with him going from a reserved, if fierce, expression to one of defeat.

Health 1-6-2012

2012-01-06T14:34:00.001-06:00

It has been awhile since I documented my health issues. Once again, my not liking to write about it caused me to stop.

More tired than usual this week, but somewhat functional and have gotten things done like rebuilding the media center PC and setting up the new home entertainment configuration. Been sneezing a bit from allergies (I think all the dust I kicked up got to me) and crossword puzzles have not been going well this week.

Time for some good news. For the first time I can remember, I did not get sick with an upper respiratory infection during or just after visiting my sister and her family in Indiana. According to them, I was more active than they were used to. The H2O2 therapy is what I am crediting for that. There has been some tightness and “tickle” in the chest, but nothing has come of it. Normally that has gone straight into bronchitis.

The bad news is I need to shed all the weight I probably gained from Chex mix and cookies while there.

I also discovered that keeping the humidity up during the winter has been beneficial, because it was painfully dry in my sister’s house. So the investment in the small humidifier last winter has been a good one.

To combat persistent minor infections on my scalp and elsewhere, I have started using Nizoral shampoo. Time will tell if it helps my deficient immune system fight back. With the internal battle joined by drinking hydrogen peroxide, it is time to hammer and anvil the infections.

Adventures in Home Entertainment

2012-01-05T15:26:00.001-06:00

Sometimes your cup overfloweth and I am having a hard time getting everything posted I want to post. Which is good news on having content and bad news putting it on virtual paper. Since I will not be going anywhere soon due to no wheels, it will help me keep occupied.

Most of yesterday and today were taken up by home entertainment concerns. The 40” HDTV arrived safely to everyone’s amazement, so a domino effect began. The long awaited rebuild of the media center PC had to be done in order to output to 1080P. Being a true rebuild, blood was shed in order to successfully make things work. Or at least that is my excuse for cutting open my middle finger on the right hand. All I will admit to is that hard drives can be dangerous.

So that was actually a smashing success and my old Palit Radeon 3870 is purring away in a new used case with much better ventilation along with an extra used hard drive to make room for more HD content. Overclocking on the GPU went well. It is not generally realized, but 2d increases in speed when you do that, not just 3D games.

A new Samsung Blu-ray player and assorted cables were mated up with the Westinghouse LD 4055 40” LCD-LED HDTV successfully. None of the problems associated with that specific model have been an issue for me. Specifically, not losing aspect ratios after powering off, but I do have that set to automatic. The dreaded HDMI issues with computer video cards were avoided by getting a DVI to HDMI cable and controlling the overscan from the Catalyst Control Center.

Color control on the set is poor, with only three presets available. Cooler and disabling Dynamic on the picture helped a great deal since the picture is biased toward the red. This was a surprise as I had the impression that LED lit screens leaned toward a bluish cast. Brightness is a wee bit excessive, but not a big issue since we have a very bright living room during daylight hours. If I seem to be complaining, I am not for this has been the fastest to get adjusted TV I have ever dealt with. The default colors are very close to optimal.

One problem may be audio cable related and that is getting the SPDIF coaxial cable to output properly to my decoder. There is a periodic drop out that would be highly annoying if I actually watched broadcast TV. It may not be worth even messing with since I have not yet discovered a local signal with 5.1 audio.

The Samsung BD-5700 Blu-ray player is a gem. It setup easily and found my wifi network without any issues. Upsampling to 1080p from DVD is excellent and audio is stellar. Options to downsample DTS-HD MA to standard DTS are handy, but it unexpectedly turns out my decoder can handle the core DTS signal natively when passed through. That made me very happy, though I would like to have the full audio capabilities working. But that would require new speakers and a receiver anyway.

High definition content looked fantastic on the Westinghouse when I torture tested it with my library, physical and digital. The 1080p turned out to be far better than 720p, which surprised me. Browsing the web and playing videos online has been a real treat with all that desktop real estate. To make things easier to read, DPI has been set to 120 and large type enabled.

Best of all, after some travails I was able to get my old Yamaha region free DVD player to work with the set. While only a progressive scan player, the picture is not horrible and I can still play my foreign DVD’s on it.

Once again I have to thank me sister and brother-in-law for the HDTV. The timing is good since I have no transportation and will be house bound for the most part.

China Going Backwards

2012-01-04T09:36:00.001-06:00

It has been fashionable in multiple circles to believe that China will take over the title of most powerful nation during this century. Much has been made of their economic growth and of their acquiring companies, land, and ports in other countries. This has presented an impression of an unstoppable juggernaut backed by the reality that they have become the main manufacturer of goods in the world. But does this mean China is ready or able to take over the lead?

I do not think so. Despite their growing military aggression in Asia, there are cracks appearing. With protests sporadically appearing in different regions, the specter of civil unrest has cast a long shadow across the very large country. In December, the village of Wukan rose up against land seizures and managed to make international news. That inspired another uprising in the nearby city of Haimen despite knowing they would be beaten by police.

It is no wonder that the authorities are spooked for they have witnessed successful uprisings in Arab countries this past year. They too sit on a powder keg of poor and oppressed citizens. But what is interesting to me is that the latest uprisings are in in southern China, which is supposed to be the wealthy part of the nation.

Another intriguing tidbit of information is that the wealthy are looking to escape the country in the future. From other things I have read, there is a sense of fear that another peasant rebellion could happen. So we have the wealthy prepared to pull the handle on their personal ejection seats at the first sign of serious unrest.

So when President Hu wrote a piece saying that China is under cultural attack from the West and then the government restricts television broadcasts in order to present a more pure socialist message it made my antenna go up. This strikes me as being both a reaction to domestic control problems and preparations for conflict. The latter could be internal or external, with the latter being of particular concern to me.

It is not unknown for nations to attack others to bleed off internal pressures that have become too difficult to regulate. However, this may not be the conventional bombing or invading of another country kind of attack. The communists running China have been orchestrating cyber attacks on other countries for years. Asymmetric warfare is at the heart of Chinese military planning, being a theory of fighting a foe who is more powerful by using unconventional means. Right now, that means using cyber warfare against America.

Frankly, I do not think that will do a thing to vent social pressures at home. So the odds of an open confrontation with the United States to whip up patriotic fervor are increasing. While the OWS idiots focused on the spurious one percent here, the income disparities in China make us look well balanced by comparison.

With a housing bubble bigger than the one that popped here and a massive population that are truly dirt poor, China has problems too big to easily fix no matter how much state control is imposed. Actually, state control rarely fixes problems and just breeds more from what I have seen. Aggravating this is how they are driving out Western companies and nationalizing companies again. Wealth and power are being consolidated in the hands of an elite few, as is typical with socialist systems. It is sadly reminiscent of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

With Europe and the United States poised for even worse financial problems in 2012, China will become even more unstable as the buyers for their manufactured goods dry up. November and December saw drops in manufacturing there, so those ballyhooing increased manufacturing in the States should take a reality check, stat. Demand is still not coming back. The fact that Hu and company think that the US is deliberately taking economic hits to undermine them financially does not help things either.

An unstable China will be prone to doing things that would be out of character for them in recent decades. People in the West have forgotten the China that invaded their neighbors Vietnam and India. Suffice it to say, nobody in the region has though. There is quite a military build up going on throughout Asia right now due to Chinese naval aggression at sea.

I would like to be a fly on the wall in some of the intelligence briefings in the region. Even the cash strapped Philippines government is looking to get F-16 fighter jets because of what has been going on.

It is going to be an interesting year.

Rambling Man

2012-01-02T17:21:00.001-06:00

So this 2012 thing looks new and shiny doesn’t it? Wait, don’t rub that finish! Ah… errr, that isn’t rust under there, that’s primer! New finishes are fragile, don’t ya know…

It funny how we use arbitrary dates and magically thinks that they change things. While it is a good system to sort events out, there is nothing real about the change of a date. Things of the world still progress in their own way, ignorant of things such as calendars, appointments, and dates. It is the balance to humans living chained to clocks, calendars, and schedules while being ignorant of most of what else is going on outside of their lives.

December was a strange month ending an odd year. Losing the car to a deer and being essentially stranded here for the foreseeable future is not making me a happy camper. So the trip to visit my sister and her family in Indiana via Amtrak became a welcome respite from dealing with that mess. A mess that is still unresolved with documents promised from the insurance adjuster nowhere in sight.

The big news is my sister is pregnant and that is going to bring quite a few changes to that household. It will be interesting to see how the twins handle a new half-sister come late summer. Meanwhile, forget morning sickness, my sister has all day and night sickness. Not fun in the slightest and I hope she has an easier time of it as the pregnancy progresses.

Rare is it when I can be surprised by something and that goes doubly so for gifts. So when I spotted the huge wrapped box in the living room of their house, the thought that they might give me a Kindle evaporated. Surely that could not be an HDTV?

Of course it was. Just one little problem… how to get it home? Having ridden there on the train, I was sure it would not be allowed on as cargo. After verifying that, it ended up being shipped UPS with no possibility of insurance. So we will have a new TV if it survives shipping. Given the way things have gone of late, maybe I should not have ordered the Blu-ray player to be its companion. We will see.

My other gifts were socks (yes, I requested socks for Christmas – deal with it), pajamas (what, am I six again?), and a replica of my favorite Harry Potter character’s wand (Neville will always be the real hero of the story to me).

Speaking of unsung heroes, Bob Anderson died. I have always appreciated great swordsmanship and never have gotten to see the real masters names who have been on the silver screen. Reclaiming the Blade goes on my Netflix cue ASAP.

Back on topic, whatever that was. Let me look…

Okay, the visit went well, no lives were lost and no animals killed or maimed in the process – despite being highly tempted. Their tiger cat, Teddy, has a compulsive tendency to micturate on our belongings and my laptop bag was the latest victim. Last time it was my father’s papers from a project he was working on.

Forced cat holding session begun.

Forced cat holding session ended.

My white cat Snooky is always demanding. Being gone for a week has aggravated her a great deal, so I am expected to hold her. Perpetually. Not gonna happen.

So back to the visit. Many a game was played and I won an unnaturally large amount of them. Typifying the mayhem, I won the final Sorry game by coming from behind with my brother-in-law and father with all their pawns in or in the safe zone. Given I was unable to even get on the board for the first go through of the cars, it was quite amazing. But I have to say my two victories in Apples to Apples were the real high point. There is nothing quite as satisfying as using people’s prejudices against them.

Forced cat holding session begun.

Forced cat holding session ended.

Good thing this post isn’t about a subject.

In the mailbox when I got home were the Pro Ana red/blue 3D glasses I had found on Amazon. They are acrylic with plastic frames and will be much harder to lose than the paper and gel kind. Experiments with them and PowerDVD 11 have been intriguing. As I suspected, the latest version of Star Trek converted very well to 3D. The way that film was shot lends itself to being turned into 3D and I have more experiments to perform. Sadly, I cannot put up any images because there is no way around the copy protection used by the program.

There are issues with everything getting darker and colors being somewhat off. Anything intensely red or blue becomes electric and skin tones yellow are the worst of it. Also fascinating is the ability to apply this conversion to still photos. What really surprised me is how useful this may turn out to model building. With depth I can better make out some of the subtle to complex bumps and lumps on aircraft walkarounds. So this may be something useful after all.

One fun thing about them is I can browse the various anaglyphic images on the web. Not bad for 17 cents and $2.98 shipping!

I was going to write about the experiences on the train trips, but enough rambling for now. That can be materiel for another post.

To the New Year

2011-12-29T14:53:00.001-06:00

As 2011 gasps its last breaths, it is either a time to review the year that has been or look forward to the year that will be. Given the year that was for me, I am choosing the latter. So the assignment I have given myself is to think about things to look forward to.

While 2011 had some good movies to go to and I actually attended more than I usually do, 2012 is shaping up to be a very interesting time at the theater. The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, and Prometheus all look entertaining if not excellent. But the one really making me eager to see is the first of The Hobbit movies. Aggravating that is the trailer that was released this month:

Looks fantastic, doesn’t it? The final moments of the trailer raised goosebumps for me. It is hard to believe it is ten years from when Fellowship of the Ring came out.

Come to think of it, watching the Blu-rays of the Extended Editions is another thing to look forward to. My sister and her husband have given us a 40” 1080P 120 MHz LED LCD HDTV for Christmas. This unexpected addition to the living room has prompted me to raid the money I was saving for a new PC monitor and get a decent Blu-ray player for the set. Just one catch and that is getting it to Minnesota from Indiana.

At least by the time it gets shipped home all the needed cables and gear should have arrived in time. New gear means new cables. At least I will still be able to hook up my region free Yamaha DVD player to the new set. Time to rebuild the media center PC too and add an older HD compatible video card I have to it.

I just hope I do not break anything setting it up. A gift to my step nephew lasted only a couple of minutes after giving it to him. Warning him not to overstretch the toy resulted in one broken toy thirty seconds later. Maybe I should not have warned him…

It appears I have inadvertently created a couple of Bleach fans with the step nephew and niece. They especially like Rukia after seeing several episodes, so they show some good taste there.

The big news is that my sister is pregnant. Irony runs strong in the family, so it is no surprise that this happened unexpectedly after many previous travails trying to conceive. Welcome news, indeed.

While trying to maintain a positive attitude about next year, I cannot say I am looking forward to the political and economic aspects. The only description I can muster for it without sounding apocalyptic is the word “meatgrinder.” If that is one word, that is.

One thing I will not be doing is a New Year’s resolution. I am too busy trying to do everything I can to improve my health to add something on top of it. Also, last year’s one of finding a gal was a total fiasco, so avoiding the irritation of failing to keep a new one is a bonus. All hope has been lost on that anyway.

Here is to hoping something can be done about our transportation problems.

RIP Subaru Outback

2011-12-27T12:02:00.001-06:00

In the face of the ridiculous costs of bodywork, the still running Subaru has been totaled by the car insurance company. Sadly, there is no way we can afford to replace it with a vehicle that has even a fraction of its capabilities and things are an absolute mess on the transportation side of life.

The Subaru was the best car we ever had and ever will have. It could handle any weather, slippery hills, and long distance travel with excellent handling and comfort. A trip to New Foundland proved what a wonderful traveling car it was and i have fond memories of driving it through Canada.

Deer were cruel to it and there were other minor accidents, so it was an unlucky vehicle over the years. The first day we had it in December of 2004, I hit ice pulling into a business and put the car through a garage door. I should have known then something bad would happen to it in the end just from that unfortunate beginning.

Now we are faced with a serious problem of no wheels and not being able to afford what we really need living out in the sticks. The ever treacherous driveway makes ascending it very tricky on anything other than a 4WD or AWD during the winter.

This did not help with my improving on feeling the Christmas spirit. I am set on getting a 12 gauge by next deer season.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T22:01:00.001-06:00

It is going to be a quiet one here, but I hope others have a lively one with their families. With nothing profound to say this year, I can only suggest that you remember to forgive one another and fill your hearts with love. This is what it is supposed to be about and why the Savior was born.

To those who do not believe, I advise the same nonetheless. Forgiveness and love make life much better in my experience. I think you will find the same if you practice it.

So a merry Christmas to all on this quiet eve!

Mr. Krueger’s Christmas: 25th Anniversary DVD

2011-12-23T13:46:00.001-06:00

A simple 25 minute film featuring Jimmy Stewart as a lonely old man on Christmas Eve became something of a classic amongst Latter-day Saints after its 1980 release. While marking a shift in outreach to the public from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its importance is more than that. It is the simple message at the end that says it all about the holiday.

I had originally planned to review something completely different for Christmas, but was hit by a moment of inspiration. Having had difficulty getting into the feeling of the season, I realized it had been a few years since I last watched this. So along with purchasing Christmas with the Rat Pack from Amazon’s MP3 service, it was time to make an active effort. By the way, I’m listening to that superb compilation while writing this review.

Mr. Krueger’s Christmas begins with the title character working as a custodian of an apartment building. It being Christmas Eve, he sets out for a tree to put up in his basement apartment. Attempts to interact with people on the street are ignored or barely acknowledged. It is cold outside in more ways than one.

Along the way, he looks at a suit in a shop window, much like a child looking at toys would. In no time he is lost in a fantasy of being fitted with a new suit and being treated like a man of status. It is only the beginning of fantasies which Willie Krueger succumbs to out of loneliness.

Upon returning to his apartment, we find out Mr. Krueger is a widower whose only companion is his cat. It is a quaint apartment, filled with memories. Setting the tree on a table, the old man puts a record on. No surprise here, it is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and soon he drifts off into a dream where he is conducting the choir. It is all an excuse to show playing in the snow, from sleigh rides to throwing snowballs while hearing excellently sung Christmas music.

A chance encounter with carolers singing outside the apartment building introduces Willie to Clarissa, a cute little moppet who bonds with him instantly. That does not go over too well with her mother and the carolers are very uncomfortable with the hungry for company senior citizen. Once again alone, Mr. Krueger slips into imagining being with people for Christmas and we hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

But it is his contemplating the Nativity Scene on a small table that leads to a surprisingly powerful scene where Willie finds himself at the Nativity. The heartfelt words of the simple and devout man as he sees the Savior are perfectly portrayed by Stewart. What an amazing actor he was and so wonderful in this short, sweet performance.

The whole question of being alone and whether we ever are truly alone is addressed here, but what about Christmas Eve for Mr. Kreuger?

Thoughts

This is an old fashioned story and reflects a more innocent time. While formulaic, Jimmy Stewart makes it work and prevents it from overdosing on being hokey. The ending has genuine emotional impact and delivers the message of what Christmas is really about: Love.

I do not think people can be reminded of that enough.

This is an endearing short film and I can see why it has become an annual tradition for many families in the Church. It is short, sweet, and to the point. More jaded people will probably not be impressed, but I think if you like this you prove that you still have a heart in an increasingly heartless time.

Also included on the 25th Anniversary DVD are three other videos:

The Restoration which is a retelling of Joseph Smith’s early life as he was seeking to understand God’s will and what Church was true. This led to what is called the First Vision in my church and is subject of the film. Very straight forward and showing the higher production values 25 years can provide, it is very well done for a 20 minute film.

The Nativity is a short five minute depiction of Joseph and Mary entering Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus Christ. All the dialogue is in Hebrew with no subtitles, though I did not try Close Captioning. I found it to be very good, especially in the depiction of the three wise men. Sadly, the quality of the video is terrible and looks like it came off of VHS.

God So Loved the World: Carols of Christmas by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

This is a collection of performances of a wide variety of Christmas songs and fills 26 minutes with superb singing. The songs are:

God So Loved the World
Joy to the World
Whence Is that Goodly Fragrance Flowing?
The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy
What Shall We Give to the Babe in the Manger?
Ding, Dong! Merrily on High!
The First Noel

All are great, but the calypso infused fourth track is a blast. It is obvious the choir and musicians were having way too much fun with that one.

I recommend the DVD to anyone who likes the true spirit of Christmas and to Jimmy Stewart fans who want to have a complete collection of his works. There are no other actors as endearing as the late Mr. Stewart.

Land Rights Battle in Houston County Gets National Attention

2011-12-23T09:35:00.001-06:00

It was something of a surprise to get an email from a friend linking a post on Glenn Beck’s site, The Blaze and asking if this was the local issue a mutual friend was involved in. Sure enough, it is all about the land rights fight here in Houston County.

The money quote from Bjerke in the article is no surprise. Beyond his left wing politics, this is business as usual for the county commissioners regardless of political affiliation. Dictatorial is a common adjective thrown at them in this area and is the norm in most rural counties.

But now some comments on the issue at hand. In a nutshell, Houston County doesn’t want residences increasing in land areas zoned for agriculture. The theory is city folk will come in and destroy the area if they are allowed to build homes here. So to restrict building, only one house per 40 acres is allowed.

That is very restrictive, especially for families that want to keep farms in the family and have the next generation build their own house on the family homestead. A neighboring county, Fillmore, is worse from what I have been told. There are areas zoned where it is something like 120 acres that the same kind of ordinance is applied to.

Something that needs pointing out is Houston County’s population has been declining for years. All this talk of bringing in manufacturing companies is moot if there isn’t a population to supply the labor force. You also need the population to make up for lost tax revenues given out as tax breaks to said companies. So limiting population growth in any way is foolish.

Having been approached years ago to possibly be the spokesman for the group that was forming to fight this, I declined. While sympathetic and thinking they are in the right, I had some issues with using the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of the “pursuit of happiness” as a basis for fighting the zoning law. Land rights is one place the founding fathers botched things. With no explicit land rights expressed in the document or its amendments, it left things wide open for abuse. This is curious due to the amount of writings about those rights before the Constitution was created.

In the end, I believe an amendment to the state constitution is needed and then a push for an amendment on the national level. Nothing less will solve this problem completely and safeguard our rights to land ownership and stewardship.

What goes unmentioned in the post on The Blaze is that there is an element of religious intolerance, if not persecution, involved in this dispute. The original case was fought by a family belonging to a tiny Christian sect called the Marinathas. Outside of mainstream Christianity to some degree, they have been the objects of rumor mongering and ridicule by outsiders.

The rumors that were spread by supporters of the commissioners went something like this: they want to build a cult compound like Jamestown so they can gather people together and take over the area. Needless to say, this did not help the atmosphere. From my dealings with members of the sect, I have found them to be very good, God fearing, and patriotic people. Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I can sympathize about being misunderstood.

I will admit that the family involved in the case were far too hot headed in the way they initially handled things. While they thought they had been given a verbal agreement, you have to have something written when dealing with government. Otherwise misunderstandings can and will arise like it did in this case.

But the fight rapidly grew to include many people outside the Marinathas and there is quite a cross section of concerned citiziens in Concerned Landowners. It has become quite the brouhaha and the commissioners are finding themselves in contested elections now. It will be interesting to see how the national attention affects things in this small rural county.

As for the media censorship of letters to the editor, this is normal and there is no such thing as an impartial newspaper. I do think Heather Gray went overboard on banning all letters on the subject, but The Spring Grove Herald is a DFL aligned newspaper so do not expect an even break there. Instead, mourn the fact that no conservative has been willing to throw money away at a dying medium to counter liberal papers. Actually, the biggest issue is that Gray was mayor and editor at the same time. That was a big conflict of interest that reminded me of Charles Foster Kane’s desires to control everything, albeit on a microscopic scale.

I hope that the battle for property rights gets some results, but I am not holding my breath. Once entrenched, laws are nearly impossible to repeal.

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)

2011-12-21T18:40:00.001-06:00

Updating a rather ridiculous giant monster series that featured a flying and fire breathing turtle does not sound like a recipe for success. But this surprisingly entertaining film almost convinces you that a turtle could fly. While a mixed bag, it shows the potential that the trilogy eventually grows into. Time for giant monster destruction as Tokyo gets hammered yet again!

The popular Gamera series of giant turtle kids movies from the 1960’s and 70’s did not get an auspicious start with Gamera the Invincible. It was an obvious attempt to cash in on Toho Studios successful Godzilla franchise on an even lower budget. It had none of the gravitas or coherency of the contemporary Godzilla films, much less that of Gojira which started the whole thing. The movies got weirder and more juvenile as the years went on.

So when a director named Shusuke Kaneko was given the green light to restart the defunct property, there was not a huge amount of excitement from what I remember. It did not help that his resume was filled with cheap exploitation flicks filled with the late night cable fare of sex and violence. The idea he could update a kiddie movie and make a hit out of it was far fetched. Even more far fetched would be for it to be critically acclaimed.

The Movie

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe begins the trilogy with a serious music and a dark ocean in what appears to be a statement of intent by the director. A cargo ship laden with a ton of highly toxic plutonium is being escorted through the night sea by a Japanese destroyer and helicopter. On board the destroyer is one young and entirely too serious officer, Yoshinari Yonemori (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and his captain. The escort duty is weighing on them in typical Japanese monster movie environmentalism fashion. Start your checklist here for all the kaiju tropes!

Of course something has to go wrong and so it does. The freighter runs aground on an atoll that should not be there. More importantly, the atoll itself is moving with the current! Here in Minnesota, we hit deer with cars, but in Japan they hit giant mysterious objects with ships. It is an opportunity to show off something new to the genre, CGI. The computer generated effects are not bad for the mid-Nineties and give a sense of scale.

Instead of all this being kept secret, the events fill the headlines of the Japanese newspapers – or so I assume. For some inexplicable reason there is no subtitling of headlines, signs, or the cast credits, for that matter. It does help that the film cuts to two schoolgirls discussing the news and ancient historical myths. Yes, you read that right. Atlantis and Mu are both touched on. Here we are introduced to Asagi Kusanagi played by Ayako Fujitani, Steven Seagal’s daughter! Glad she got her mother’s looks.

More characters and plot are introduced rapidly. Pretty (and young) Doctor Mayumi Nagamine comes into the picture when a phone call from her mentor interrupts her avian studies. The phone goes dead before she can get to it and we are shown a storm on the outer island where Professor Hirata is on a field trip. There a pure horror film scene unfolds with an unseen assailant chasing locals to fearful ends.

Meanwhile, Yonemori begs his way into the civilian research expedition searching for the mysterious atoll. Naoya Kusangi (Akira Onodera) is in charge of it and reluctantly gives in to the younger man. Later on, Yonemori talks his way into the home of the Kusanagi’s after meeting Asagi in a local shop. When Kusanagi walks in to find the sailor cooking and alone with his underage daughter, his silent look fills volumes. Good man, that is how a father should react!

One of the strengths of the movie is how every day life is portrayed. In some ways, it is a time capsule of 1990’s Japan. By showing so much normality, it makes the weird events and situations easier to accept (or forgive) since there is a foundation of reality underpinning it.

I cannot believe I just wrote that sentence about a movie starring a giant flying turtle.

Another thing to note about this film is that it jumps around a lot. That is not a knock against it, since all the balls are successfully juggled, but it does mean the movie is fast paced. If you do not pay attention, you will miss something. Attention to detail makes this an unusual kaiju movie and I find myself discovering little things with each viewing.

Nagamine is recruited by Inspector Oksako (Yukijiro Hotaru) to investigate the last mysterious radio message from Himegami Island where Hirata was. Something bad involving a “bird” was the message and she agrees to go with the nervous police officer. There they find wrecked homes and a disgusting mass of goo that she promptly identifies as a giant pellet, or undigested mass that birds vomit. Showing great fortitude, she eagerly plunges her gloved hand into the pellet and withdraws a horrifying discovery.

Soon, the “bird” is discovered and it is not normal at all. Having a fifteen meter wingspan, teeth, and a reptilian appearance, it is rapaciously hungry and fresh out of food on the island. Japan beckons with all those juicy humans to consume and the chase is on. Suddenly I have a craving for sushi. Disturbing.

The news gets worse, for there are three of the critters looking at Japan like it is one big happy meal. Time for the government to get involved and make everything better. Yeah, that is not going to work out so well. For one thing, the representative from the cabinet, Mr. Saito, wants to capture the animals rather than kill them. He isn’t above using intimidation to draft Nagamine into creating a plan and he is as annoying as the picture above indicates. With him, the main cast is now complete.

Oh wait, isn’t someone big missing?

While the good doctor and detective deal with the “birds,” Yonemori and Kusanagi are digging for clues on the atoll. A lot of little comma shaped ingots of metal are uncovered along with a strange marker covered in European runes. In a 2001 like moment, Yonemori touches the monolith and things begin going wrong -- starting with an earthquake (atollquake?) that throws them into the water. There he glimpses something that would make most normal people doubt their sanity. Fortunately for him, Yonemori is too dorky to be normal.

The weak willed Inspector Osaka turns out not to be an idiot after all and a very clever trap for the “birds” is executed successfully using a baseball stadium. Well, mostly. Problem is a giant turtle has surfaced and is rampaging through the city on his way toward the birds. Yes, the last member of the cast has finally shown up and is chewing on the scenery. More accurately, Gamera is destroying it. Look for the tragic loss of ramen noodles in this scene.

No, I am not kidding. A sly and dark sense of humor pervades the movie, which is another thing to keep an eye open for. Some of it is inside jokes regarding the genre and some of it is derived from normal people dealing with extremely abnormal situations.

Speaking of abnormal, after the fiasco at the stadium, the turtle looks constipated and then emits a massive amount of smoke. Tokyo, we have lift off! In moments the giant reptile has turned into a flying saucer just like in the old movie series. The eyewitnesses are just as dumbfounded as they should be witnessing the bizarre spectacle.

After demonstrating a strange laser like beam from their vocal cries that can shear steal smoothly, the Gyaos are loose. Gyaos? Yes, that is what their name is according to the ancient prophecy on the monolith found earlier on Gamera. Both creatures get their names and the government convenes an emergency session. The Japanese constitution will not allow them to take military action against Gamera, you see. It is a nice bit of real world politics and only since 9/11 has Japan amended their laws to take action overseas, for instance.

Politics now move to center stage as the government is still determined to protect the Gyaos because they are an endangered species. Hey, eating humans isn’t a big deal after all! It is nice to see the scientist involved not defending the dangerous critters as Nagamine makes her opinions forcefully felt. She is a very strong personality in contrast to her petite form and is a welcome departure from stereotype.

Heroics follow, with Nagamine attempting to rescue a boy, then being rescued by Yonemori, then the lot of them are rescued by Gamera in an exciting sequence. The budding, if very slight, romance between the two leads begins here. Nothing like helping save the girl to get her attention.

But the misunderstood giant turtle is now public enemy number one. Making things worse is the strange telepathic link developing between Gamera and Asagi through one of those metal trinkets she now wears on a necklace. When he is injured, the same wound appears on her…

With the military given the full go ahead, war is waged on Gamera. Whether it be the air, land, or sea it does not matter, the Japanese Self Defense Force has a way to take him down. It is a marked contrast to Godzilla, who is usually invulnerable to whatever is thrown at him. Between the JSDF and Gyaos, he gets his shell handed to him and that badly hurts Asagi too.

With the two out of commission, there is nothing to stop the remaining Gyaos from terrorizing Tokyo. Feasting upon a commuter train car full of baseball fans brings new meaning to “being packed like sardines” as the much larger creature looks for a place to nest. With reproduction on her mind, Gyaos is now a threat to the survival of all of humanity.

Will Tokyo be rescued? Will the military stop pounding on their only hope? Will the stock market recover from the events? Those questions and more will be answered in the end when the battle really begins! Well, maybe not all of them.

Thoughts

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is a mixed bag, being hokey at times but very clever at other times. Watching it I want to riff on it ala MST3K’s infamous showings of the original series. However, there are a lot of good scenes and smart dialogue, plus well developed characters. In that sense, it reminds me of really good kids movies that operate at several levels and can keep parents entertained as well. I suspect that was the goal of the movie in the first place.

There are so many little touches that add to the movie that I cannot begin to list them all. Earlier, I mentioned how it helped the realism by depicting so much of normal life throughout the film. It keeps the movie from going completely silly even though a lot of it really is ludicrous.

Little did I know it seeing it many years ago that this would be a break out movie for director Kaneko. After making this successful trilogy, he got his dream of directing a Godzilla movie and Godzilla: GMK is the best of the series after Gojira. Also in his resume were the smash hit adaptations of Death Note.

While being the first kaiju movie to use CGI a lot, the effects are like the movie, a mixed bag. Some are terrible, while others are stellar. In my opinion, they got better as the movie progressed. The suits vary in quality, with Gamera being a nice upgrade from the original look, while Gyaos was not that impressive until the final form. That suit was the best of the movie.

The fights were mixed quality too. When the combatants were fighting from a distance, it worked. When they tussled, it was something of a disappointment.

Some of the violence and blood will make this movie too intense for little kids and there is some gore of a monstrous nature.

I recommend Gamera: Guardian of the Universe to people who love watching giant monsters trample cities, kids, and kids at heart. Parents watching this with their children may be surprised to find more depth than is usual for the genre.

Technical

The copy I have is part of a Blu-ray set put out by Mill Creek that has the entire trilogy. This was a welcome release since the old ADV DVD release had gotten rare and pricey. From what I have read about the old release, this one is miles better in quality and benefits a great deal from being HD. It looks better than what I remember watching in the late 90’s on DirecTV pay per view and it definitely sounds much better with options for DTS-HD Japanese and Dolby 5.1 for both the Japanese and English tracks.

While not the highest quality HD, the video is better than DVD though it is grainy. Given how much of the film is shot at night this isn’t a surprise to me. I suspect my watching it on a computer monitor up close exposes flaws a great deal more than viewing it on a big screen TV in a living room. Ratio is 1.85:1. Colors are vibrant and well saturated.

The English dub is not terrific, but not horrible either. I do not think the portrayal of Osaka in English was good for it turned him into a clown. As ever, I suggest watching the original cast with subtitles. I mentioned before that only the dialogue is subtitled.

There are extras included on the one Blu-ray disc that contains the movie and its sequel. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to access them using PowerDVD 11. Finding the audio setup requires starting one of the movies and the pop-up button on the software. I assume that a standalone player won’t have the same difficulties.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

The destruction of the Tokyo Tower happens in a lot of Godzilla films but this one takes the cake. While trying to shoot Gyaos down, the Japanese army accidentally destroys the tower! That leads to this reaction from those directly responsible for destroying a national landmark:

The line from the general is dead on following the screw up and you can see the minister thinking his political career just ended.

One of the better subplots is the relationship between Asagi and her father. Papa wants to keep her uninvolved in the crisis, even going into deep denial about her telepathic connection to Gamera. While the linked pair are unconscious and recovering from their wounds, Kusanagi looks in on his daughter in her bedroom. There he finds photos of the family including the missing mother. While that isn’t explained, there is a great moment when he discovers his daughter has a boyfriend.

The final chase sequence was a very fun bit. The sheer amount of damage the giant turtle does while trying to shoot down his opponent was amazing. It is one thing to be able to spit fireballs, but when you can’t hit what you aim at…

Still, the aerial fight is very well done and even takes the monsters to the edge of space. Hokey but fun!

The power of love, in this case between father and daughter, is what saves the day. Drawing upon her father’s strength, Asagi wills Gamera to survive. He does in what is a nod to Gamera the Invincible’s scenes of eating flames.

The final standoff is straight out of a cowboy western. That amused me no end. And being Gamera, he says good bye to the main characters at the end.

Why I Despise Deer

2011-12-20T09:24:00.001-06:00

In my previous post, I mentioned my father hit a deer yesterday -- after we finally go the brakes repaired on the car. Talking to him, he did not even get a chance to brake, which is just like the deer in 2007. There are too many of the hooved vermin in the area and the DNR has allowed things to get out of control. A couple of years of year round open season might be enough to manage the population, but I think it will require government culling. That will never happen here in Minnesota thanks to Bambi lovers in the cities.

As you can see, the front driver’s side took the hit this time. The license plate holder/protector I got to defend against kamikaze pheasant attacks did its job and only the top rim remains.

There is deer hair everywhere. At least the radiator appears undamaged; the 2007 hit destroyed it. The headlight is a complete loss.

The door had to be completely replaced when a buck ran into it in 2008. Now the new one is banged up. Looking at the car from the side shows how violent the collision was. Yet it is not enough to set off the airbags to my amazement.

As bad as it looks, the collision in 2007 was worse:

Not a good way to go into Christmas.

Just Say No to Monday!

2011-12-19T20:43:00.001-06:00

At least that was my reaction to today. After having a good week, it figures something bad was coming. The car that finally got its brakes fixed in time for me to go to church on Sunday is now out of commission. My father hit a deer and crumpled the front end again and the shattered the left side headlights. There is simply no winning right now.

I’ll post photos tomorrow after I take them. For some reason I am feeling motivated to get a 12 gauge shotgun for next deer season…

I had plans made for the week that are all now impossible, so it is time to be a shut in again. Loss of transportation equals loss of life to poor rural folks and is something hard to explain if you aren’t experiencing it yourself.

Now I don’t have any excuse for not posting, drat it.

So one giant monster movie review is coming. The monster is giant, not the review. After that, I should do something for Christmas, shouldn’t I?

Kim Jong Il Has Died

2011-12-18T22:07:00.001-06:00

The oppressive dictator of North Korea has escaped mortal justice and now the jockeying for power in the communist country begins in earnest. It is not surprising to see the markets in Asia going down out of fears of instability. One can only pray this offers a flicker of hope for the North Korean people.

It is difficult not to contrast his “accomplishments” in contrast to those of another leader who just died, Vaclav Havel. One died while clinging to power by starving his own people and the other died after having helped usher his country into democracy. If only there could be a Velvet Revolution on the Korean Peninsula, but I am afraid that is highly unlikely.

Friday Already?

2011-12-16T11:38:00.001-06:00

This week has zoomed by. Perhaps that has been a penalty for things going better. We humans have a tendency to remember and dwell on the negative more than the positive, so time appears to fly when things go well.

Late last night I updated the Summer Wars review. While changing it to include the Blu-ray version, I found way too many errors that slipped past me when I originally posted it. Very annoying, especially the misspellings of names. Repeat viewings of the movie only make me fonder of it and have now led me to buy a deck of hanafuda cards off of eBay today.

An attempt to get a microphone working with my Asus Xonar D1 audio card failed miserably. The best I could get out of it was static humming through the subwoofer no matter what I did. It is the one flaw of the card that if you do not have a front panel hooked up to it you have to use the SPDIF/Line In/Microphone jack in back. Way too many functions assigned to the hybrid 3.5mm and optical jack. So it looks like a USB microphone is a must buy.

On a brighter note, I have found obsolete CPU’s for my living room multimedia center have gone down in price online. It will be possible to put a faster processor in there after all. No hurry though, it will be awhile before there is a HDTV to hook up to it.

The brakes have finally been replaced on the car with only a concern about brake line pressure. It is a minor thing that can be rectified if it doesn’t resolve on its own. It will be nice to have some freedom to get about again.

It still amuses me that Bleach and Citizen Kane are the two most heavily trafficked posts on the blog. Quite a contrast, eh? I blame the two animated gifs that became Internet memes.

Feeling the tired beyond my normal tired today. That means watching some giant Japanese monsters beat on each other is in order.

Odds, Ends and In-betweens

2011-12-14T15:30:00.001-06:00

This has been a good week so far and it is Wednesday already so that means the majority of it has been good. It has been awhile since I could say that.

Sunday I got a ride to church and hung out with a young friend of mine and his girlfriend as we got his fancy new Onkyo home theater system to play nice with his new PC. A spare optical cable I had lying around turned out to be key in getting the signal out to the receiver. The Phillip's one he bought at Wal-Mart refused to convey a proper signal, so we decided it was probably defective.

Monday I bought an upgrade to the Cyberlink PowerDVD player that came with my Blu-ray drive since I was liking what it was capable of but wanted more features. PowerDVD 11 Ultra is a very nice upgrade and I am currently playing with its TrueTheater HD upscaling versus the capable ATI Avivo of my videocard. Depending on the video, it seams to do a better job when the content is of lower quality. More testing is needed before I can conclusively say more, but it is promising. It is now my go to video player for all formats.

Sorry, VLC – you have really fallen by the wayside of late.

That cheap optical cable I mentioned before? Well, shockingly it turned out to work with the Razer Barracuda soundcard on my living room multimedia center PC I built with leftover parts a couple of years ago. Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive sound fantastic coming out of it, which breathes new life into streaming content from Hulu, YouTube, Crackle, and other places on the Web. All I can surmise is that the Barracuda pumps out more light than the Asus Xonar D1.

Tuesday my father and I had lunch with a friend from out neighboring county in Houston at the Crossroads Cafe and caught up on politics. I also encountered an amazing hashbrown omelet that was not only huge but had everything wrapped in the hashbrowns. I am still digesting it a day later.

Today we ate at the same place when we met with our State Representative, Greg Davids. It is going to be a strange election year for many reasons, but redistricting due to the census makes it weirder than usual. We do not know for sure where the districts will be until the courts rule on them. Hopefully, they will be more logical than the last court imposed ones from 2000. Odds are that I will be in the same district as Greg, but the state senate is another question. I will hate to lose Jeremy Miller as my senator if it goes the way I suspect, but that’s life.

Now for something more sobering. I have to agree with Glenn Reynolds last sentence. These are fast becoming perilous times when you cannot trust the election process anymore.

Over in Belgium a mass shooting took place that got next to no attention here in the States. So far it appears the shooter being a drug dealer about to go to prison again is the motivation, despite his Moroccan origins. The fact he was not a practicing Muslim indicates it wasn’t sudden jihad syndrome, but why did he have grenades and 9500 gun parts? It makes me suspect he dealt illegal weapons on the side to other drug dealers and criminals. Even the craziest of gun nuts do not have that many parts lying around.

In my opinion, Europe is slowing losing control to criminals due to their pervasive statism and gun control laws. Look how well those laws worked with a convict having possession of that kind of arsenal. There is always a way for criminals to arm themselves – always.

My prayers go out to those wounded and the loved ones of those killed.

Bleach Ep. 13: Flower and Hollow

2011-12-14T14:38:00.001-06:00

Orihime gets another turn in the spotlight as the duel between Ichigo and Ishida continues. Also returning is the horror movie vibe as the teen’s high school is besieged by a Hollow with some very interesting powers. But a lot more than that happens in this packed episode that shows off most of Bleach’s strengths and none of its weaknesses.

In episode 12, Chad and Karin got their chance to shine as they teemed up to defeat a Hollow. In the process, we got a glimpse of the Mexican-Japanese boy’s past and motivations when they triggered supernatural powers in him. But he was not the only one Ishida hinted about having spiritual powers…

Picking up where the previous episode left off, broken windows get the attention of Orihime, Tatsuki, and Chizeru at the high school. Ever conscientious, the redhead rushes over to clean up the mess while her friends fight. Or more accurately, while Tatsuki defends her friend’s honor against the advances of the annoying stereotype girl.

That does not matter to the gentle girl, for she senses something evil is lurking on the rooftops and wants her friends to leave – now. Realizing that Orihime can see it, the Hollow confronts the now very frightened girl about this ability. Chizeru is hit by a strange projectile from the monster and starts losing control of her body. To her horror, she is being made to attack the object of her crush.

While that after school special gone terribly wrong continues, Rukia is trying to figure out where everyone is and Ichigo is still cutting a swath through the numerous Hollows. But it is Ishida’s thoughts that are the most interesting. A flashback to when he was a small child learning to use his Quincy powers from his mentor reveals much. This is where we find out his real motivation for precipitating this crisis and a hint that he is not the villain he appears to be.

Back at the high school, the situation takes a George Romero like turn when the Hollow enslaves all the students and sends them after Orihime. It is a dark and creepy sequence, filled with odd camera angles making it effective. But in typical shounen style Tatsuki reappears to save the day and give us a very well choreographed fight.

For all her heroics and bravado, she is destined to fail against a foe she can barely sense. Hit by a “seed” from the Hollow, she is felled. Despite her iron will that allows her to resist the seed, multiple hits place her under the control of the creature.

Seeing her friend taken over and in misery triggers a flashback for Orihime that shows us how they first met. Having been badly bullied for having red hair, the sweet girl had her hair shorn by her classmates. It wasn’t until after meeting and becoming friends with Tatsuki that she regrew her trademark locks.

Angered by best friend’s suffering, the red haired beauty stands her ground and vows to protect the one who has protected her for so long. Her signature hairpins glow as her anger rises. An explosive whirlwind of spiritual energy forms around the girl and scatters the possessed high schoolers leaving a fierce looking Orihime at the center of six winged objects.

As is typical of a fighting show, the fight stops to allow introductions and conversation. Yet this manages to be even stranger than that usually is, because suddenly we are dealing with fairies. Very chatty ones at that.

Actually, they do not like being called fairies. Introducing themselves as the Shun Shun Rikka collectively and giving their individual names, they explain they are creations of her power due to being around Ichigo. All of this exposition overloads the girl’s mind.

Having sprung forth from her soul (and hairpins), they know how to handle the strange girl and quickly teach her their three abilities: forming a protective shield, a healing barrier, and a killing attack. Now empowered she takes the fight to the Hollow in convincing fashion before collapsing from the strain. Later she awakens to find herself in a strange place with a familiar face.

So ends Orhime’s fight, but what of the others? Ishida is tiring from the battle with both hands bleeding from the strain of firing his supernatural bow. While of this appears to be his fault, there are too many Hollows appearing compared to the size of the bait he used to summon them. Something strange is going on.

Rukia joins the fight only to find she is still too weak to do much. Weaker than she should be at this point in her recovery, in fact. Before she can dwell too much on that, Kon joins the fray by saving her in comic fashion.

Soon after, Ishida and Ichigo appear on the scene and once again the duel picks up in intensity. Secrets are revealed, more are hinted at, and an ominous sky warns of further trouble.

Thoughts

I liked this episode especially for the character development of Orihime. Rather than being the typical air headed beauty, she is a more complex person as previous episodes have shown. While not being a fighter in temperament, she is as much a protector as Ichigo Kurosaki in her way. Possessed of a gentler spirit, she is a welcome break from all the aggressive personalities in the cast.

Female characters are not often written well in shounen animes, but Bleach has some very good girls and women in the cast. Most show some depth and distinct personalities, with Chizeru being the exception. She is there for comic relief and nothing else. Orihime, Tatsuki, Rukia, and Karin are believable characters and quite likeable. Strong females are always a plus in my book.

The slow reveal of Ishida’s motivations is well executed and he is getting more interesting by the episode. Despite what they say, it looks like he and Ichigo are enjoying competing with each other way too much.

The fights are well done, but it is the characters that keep me coming back to watch this series. It is hard to believe I just watched the 451st episode last night!

Something I only noticed on this viewing was the theme of flower versus flower. The Hollow is very much a flower in design down to shooting seeds that take over bodies by growing through the body and there are Orihime’s flower hairpins. Even the Shun Shun Rika are flower based in appearance.

Wikipedia May Go Blank in Protest Against Bill

2011-12-13T10:09:00.001-06:00

There is an odious piece of legislation called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) being pushed in Congress right now that jeopardizes a large amount of the Web. Wikipedia is considering blanking their pages in protest of this corporate paid for bill. Intellectual property (IP) rights have gotten out of hand as failing movie and music industries try to stem the bleeding in lost profits. Instead of blaming their very poor products for the decline, they would like to censor the entire Internet in pyrrhic fashion thinking it would up sales.

While legislation against pirate sites is a reasonable goal, this implementation is dangerously excessive. Wikipedia would go under due to it and many a blog would as well. Linking to photos, pictures, and articles would be potentially criminal under this law. That kind of kills the whole concept of the Web, doesn’t it?

It is not the only attack on freedom of speech online. A recent ruling against a blogger by an Obama appointee is a direct attack on the idea of the “citizen journalist” that has flourished on the Net. Not a good precedent, but one I had been expecting for some time. The desire to control others gets stronger the bigger a government gets.

I can only hope this bill fails, for it will be a disaster for free speech not just in the United States.

Zulu Soundtrack by The City of Prague Philharmonic

2011-12-12T16:08:00.001-06:00

John Barry’s soundtrack for Zulu finally gets the justice it deserves in this lavish rendition in HDCD format. Also included are tracks from many of his other movie scores on this two disc set that spans most of his career.

In these faltering times for classical music and orchestras, The City of Prague Philharmonic has carved out a niche by redoing film themes and soundtracks under the direction of Nic Raine. The best modern recording technology has been employed for maximum clarity. Often the result is superior to previous recordings and occasionally Raine’s arrangements are simply better than the original.

A few years back I discovered one track from Silva Records 1999 double CD Zulu set online and that led to me buying quite a few tracks performed by the Philharmonic of various film themes. But I wanted to get this CD and only recently did I find a used one in the price range I am miserly so fond of.

Upon receiving it I was delighted to find that while the case had a light crack, the CD’s were immaculate. Even better, they were in the relatively rare HDCD format. After setting up Windows Media Player properly, I could hear a difference between it and my normal Media Monkey playback. Decent speakers and headphones are a must for this, otherwise you will not be able to tell the difference. But how to rip the CD’s and preserve the 20 bit quality? DBPowerAmp to the rescue and I used its demo to rip the tracks to FLAC.

Further adding to the quality of Silva Records issue is a nine page booklet packed with liner notes on the tracks. Insights into Barry’s process on each film answered some questions I had while listening to the compositions and that made listening even more enjoyable.

On to the tracks. What I wrote about them in the review of the Ember release still applies, so you will want to read that first.

Disc One:

Zulu Main Theme/Isandhlwana – The much richer sound and impeccable clarity are noticeable immediately.
News of the Massacre/Rorke’s Drift Threatened – The drums really stand out more with the strings and horns benefiting greatly from the digital recording.
Bromhead’s Safari/Wagons Over – The addition of the short intro for Michael Cain extends this track in a lovely Copeland-like passage.
“You’re All Going to Die!” – One of the missing pieces it features ominous strings reminiscent of Barry’s Bond compositions. It is a much better segue into the next track than Wagons Over.
First Zulu Appearance and Assault – Compared to the original, the strings shine and the harp is delicately pristine. It makes the Ember release sound muddy.
March of the “Men of Harlech” – The Crouch End Chorus led by David Temple sing the full song acapella and it is a fantastic addition that is just as stirring as when the soldiers sang it in the movie.
Durnford’s Horses Arrive and Depart/The Third Assault – This shows off what a modern recording does for trumpet and brass in general.
Zulu’s Final Appearance and Salute – The HDCD wider “soundstage” allows you to place where almost every instrument is. Superb.
“Men of Harlech”/End Title – Once again, fantastic.
The Girl with the Sun in Her Hair (Sunsilk TV Commercial) – Composed for a 1967 shampoo commercial it reminded me of Barry’s work on From Russia with Love. It is classic 1960’s soundtrack far and is quite good. Too good for a commercial!
The Specialist: Suite – A compilation of music from Sylvester Stallone’s 1994 action movie it was a rare outing into action films post Bond. In some ways it sounds like he was trying to reach back to his hey day and it turns very jazzy two thirds of the way in. Sadly it is not memorable.
The Cotton Club: Suite – Now this is fun. Getting back to his jazz roots, Barry composed a very George Gershwin style soundtrack in 1984. The first third features a playful piano and smoky sax, the middle darker and noirish, and ending in a mournful theme. A very good bit of music, indeed.
King Rat: March – Very military and strangely upbeat it does what a march is supposed to do – move your feet. It fits the 1965 film’s POW setting well.
The Tamarind Seed: Suite – Since no soundtrack was ever released from the 1974 movie, this is the first time the music has been made available. It is a moody string based affair about an affair. At one point a repeating instrumental phrase builds relentlessly, sounding much like a Morse code transmission, which reflects the spy thriller elements of the movie. It ends with a slow moving piece that reminded me of parts of Barry’s later soundtrack for The Black Hole.

Disc Two:

The Last Valley: Main Theme (Choral Version) – Big, militant, and sinister is how I would describe this theme. Appropriate for the 1970 film set during the The Thirty Years War. If you liked the soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian you will like this. I liked it.
Love Amongst the Ruins – A gentle and romantic waltz befitting the 1975 TV movie starring Katharine Hepburn and Lawrence Olivier. Harpsichord and strings dominate. For some reason it reminds me of The Wrong Box, a completely different movie.
Mercury Rising: The Story Ends – A generic effort that wanders about aimlessly before deciding to walk a darker path. It appears Barry did not know what exactly to do with the 1998 Bruce Willis film and parts of it seem like leftovers from Dances with Wolves.
Midnight Cowboy: Florida Fantasy – Cheerful in contrast to the 1969 movie it came from it is more of a pop track than anything else in this collection. Notable for featuring guitar work and what sounds like bongo drums if I am not mistaken.
King Kong: Prelude & Love Theme – Large sounding like the title character of the infamous 1976 remake it was composed without seeing the film! The first part is more discordant than I am used to with Barry. The love theme sounds like Rogers & Hammerstein meet John Barry. I really do not know how I feel about that.
Frances: Theme – From the very depressing 1982 movie, it combined Mozart’s Sonata in A major with Barry’s own music. Unfortunately, the outcome is slow, boring, and forgettable.
My Sister’s Keeper: Suite – Another rarity in that it comes from a 1986 period piece set in 1943 that ended up going straight to video. Opening with a harmonica and a bluesy piano, it gives way to strings and what seems to be only the left most keys of the piano. That makes for a deliberately uncomfortable passage evoking feelings of bad news. Then it gets darker in tone before finally lightening up. This is my favorite track on Disc Two and was a very nice surprise.
Hammett – Chinese motifs blend with piano and clarinet for a feeling of being in smoke filled and dimly lit dive. Can’t get more appropriate for a private eye film dealing with Chinatown! It is a good composition from a very troubled production that finally came out in 1982 after years of problems.
Dances with Wolves: The Buffalo Hunt – Gorgeous horn work and strings star in one of the best pieces from what I believe is Barry’s best soundtrack. It is a great rendition, but I still prefer the original soundtrack version from 1990. Go buy that, now!
The Deep: Theme – Slow, relaxed, and well… blah. I vaguely recall the 1977 movie only because of Jacqueline Bissett in her prime.
Mister Moses: Suite – Nic Raines went back to the original compositions of this music since Barry had compromised them to appease the film makers of the 1965 movie. So in a way, this is another first on this release. I would describe it as a very fun mix of Zulu and Dances with Wolves. Very enjoyable to listen to and it will bring a smile to your face.

All in all, this is an interesting overview of John Barry’s work over the decades. The performances are all very good and benefit from the all digital recording, not to mention the 20 bit HDCD format. However, there have been no new HDCD capable players made since the 1990’s so that is a problem. But if you have the know how, you can decode it like I did and it will sound terrific on a decent soundcard.

This version of Zulu is simply superior in every way but one to the original Ember Records release. All that is lacking is the narration by Richard Burton. Otherwise everything about the modern version is better mainly due to modern recording techniques, but also the inclusion of a couple of missing pieces. Add in all the other tracks from different movies and it becomes a slam dunk. One caveat is that it will cost you more than twice as much as the Ember release to buy in physical or digital format.

I highly recommend this two CD set to fans of Zulu, John Barry, and good film scores.

Squid Girl Season 1 DVD Set 2 and Ep. 7 Review

2011-12-10T12:57:00.001-06:00

Squid Girl returns to inkvade TV sets in the final volume of the first season. Will she take over the world or settle for taking the hearts of the viewers? Oh and was that defective DVD case problem fixed? Read on to find out!

There is still a place for utterly silly humor and the best place for it is in animation. Without the constraints of reality, there is a freedom to have anything happen. The idea of an anthropomorphic squid hybrid walking around trying to invade the world is a perfect example of this.

Squid Girl could have relied on pure silliness exclusively, but fortunately the original material and the anime adaptation have a gentler side. The little things in life are shown both comically and with warmth in a blend that makes you smile, if not appreciate life a little more. Episode 7 is a gentler and slower moving one that relies more on character insights and situations than slapstick comedy.

Is Somesquid After Me?

Poor Nagisa. She gets the job of her dreams at the beach so she can surf whenever she likes, only to find herself working next to a possibly alien invader out to conquer the world. Being the only sane one in a bunch of weirdoes is a burden to the teen, but someone must protect humanity. Right?

So when she is invited to the Aizawa residence for a welcome dinner for joining the restaurant staff, Nagisa is shocked to find Squid Girl living there. Unable to resist tormenting the only human afraid of her, Ika Musame brags how her plans are going ahead.

Despite seeing the relative normality of Squid Girl’s life with the family, the surfer girl becomes even more paranoid. Delusions about brainwashing going on lead her to ask to stay overnight, where she observes the invader’s behavior. Confused by what she sees, Nagisa decides a desperate new tactic must be used to save the Aizawa clan and humanity.

Heartbreak follows as does a terrific talk between Eiko and Ika-chan. Will things go back to normal? Is there a normal in this show?!

Why Don’t We Inkvestigate?

A rare bridge between segments has Nagisa meeting Cindy Campbell for the first time. Yes, the alien obsessed blond from MIT has returned to try to get Squid Girl to submit to being tested. For some reason being a lab rat does not appeal to the betentacled girl.

Tired of the lack of respect, not to mention fear, from humans, Ika decides that she needs to change her identity to gain that. It is time to become Squid Queen! Since royalty requires servants, she hatches a plan to recruit followers – a plan that includes blackmail. Yes, she will stoop that low to get her tentacles around the globe.

Sadly for her, she is outwitted once again by Cindy and agrees to go to her lab in exchange for her servitude. Realizing she has been played for a sucker, Ika reluctantly goes. Surprisingly, the lab is a hidden lair in the rocks near the beach! Inside are three more MIT graduates, Martin, Harris, and Clark. Like Cindy, they are obsessed with aliens.

Finding herself in the clutches of mad scientists can Ika survive without being dissected or worse? Or will childish verbal games be her undoing…

Can I Inktrest You in a Job?

Eiko rescuing a pretty girl being hit on by Goro’s life guard buddy leads to Ayomi joining the waitressing staff of the Lemon Beach House. Yes, she is girl who wore a fake Squid Girl head in an earlier episode. Her beauty is only eclipsed by her terminal shyness. The girl does not even speak and only nods in agreement.

With a beautiful girl as a lure, business booms and Squid Girl finds herself in the rare position of not being the center of attention. But that is not the worst thing the day has to offer. Being traded to the girl’s father to work at The Southern Winds has to be worse. Harsh does not begin to describe the man’s methods. If you have ever been in boot camp and had a DI you will recognize some similarities.

Being thrust into the spotlight leads to a sad epiphany for the young squid as the episode ends. Can Ayomi find her voice? Can Ika handle working for her father?

Thoughts

That was a fun episode despite not being manic. I particularly liked the clever usage of music with melodramatic tones used for Nagisa’s delusions and the 60’s movie homage for the mad scientist lair.

Speaking of (or more accurately, writing of) the mad scientists, this is the introduction of their reoccurring characters. On the Net they are often referred to as the Three Idiots for good reason. There is a bit of snarky social commentary about wasting one’s talents that I also appreciated.

Eiko gets some good character moments in each segment. It is nice to see a “voice of reason” character treated well in a comedy and she gets some great lines throughout the series.

One of the best sight gags I’ve seen in a cartoon is committed by Cindy and that had me laughing out loud. Keep an eye open for that.

Technical

The unorthodox case covers continue and the front is a clever lampoon of group photos gone wrong. The back has a typo in the first sentence that proves you cannot rely on spellcheckers alone. Also, the synopsis is annoying because it overplays Sanae’s unwanted obsession with Squid Girl as if it were the main story. Ah, otaku’s and their obsession with perviness.

The case itself is a vast improvement over the previous one. Many discs from set one were damaged in shipment due to the poor quality of the cases. Gone are the flimsy center post design and the plastic is much firmer with less flex. Discs will not depart on their own with this case. Kudos to Media Blasters for rectifying the problems there.

The second set for Season 1 of Squid Girl maintains the high visual quality of the first set reviewed here. The video scales up nicely again and the sound is clear Dolby Digital.

Episodes 7-10 are on Disc 3 and Disc 4 contains the final two episodes plus the same trailers from the previous set.

But the big bonus are the two OVA episodes of Mini Squid Girl on Disc 4. These short and relentlessly cute stories are great fun.

All in all, Media Blasters did a good job on the DVD sets and now have announced there will be a Blu-ray set released this coming Spring.

Drone Follies

2011-12-08T12:25:00.001-06:00

Iran has put the RQ-170 Sentinel on display for the world to see. Yes, one of America’s most secret aircraft is in their hands. Video here. From that it looks like it may have landed gear up rather than crashed. The airframe looks completely intact though. It also makes me wonder if the virus going around the Air Force base might be related to it. Could it have been hijacked?

Something of interest to me is the fact that it is painted in a yellow sand color. That would suggest daylight operations for the top secret reconnaissance drone and a great deal of belief in its stealth abilities. Also interesting is the used of a radar scattering grid on the intake like the F-117ANighthawk had. This is a very low observable aircraft. So much for stealth being a magical shield.

This is up there with the Gary Powers U-2 shoot down in the early 1960’s. Now I assume Russia and China will be bidding on access to the drone, if they haven’t already. You would have thought there would be a self destruct device in the RQ-170. This is embarrassing.

Full video follows:

RQ-170 Sentinel on Display in Iran

Blu-ray and the Blog

2011-12-06T13:23:00.001-06:00

I have to say I am loving my new Blu-ray drive and the quality difference in the handful of movies I have in that format. While I had some minor issues figuring out how to do screen captures, that has been resolved thanks to some codec pack changes.

As a test run, I have updated the TRON: Legacy review from earlier this year with HD screen caps at 720P resolution. I went for an optimum compromise in quality and size by choosing that resolution, which is 1280 x 720 pixels for those wondering. The review itself was cleaned up, added to, revised, and shrunken by removing the bonus screen caps.

Now I have a bunch of leftovers to make wallpapers from while I fantasize about getting a bigger monitor!

At some point in the near future I will be reviewing a few more Blu-ray’s I have including Captain America, the Gammera trilogy, and 2001. I’m really looking forward to the last because I have read that it is an exceptionally good transfer.

Oh and I had a bit of luck on Saturday. A trip with a neighbor to a local grocery turned up a used Blu-ray copy of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader for ten bucks. While the original case had been looted of the DVD and digital copy discs, it appears the original had never been played. Not a smudge, not a spec, and nary a scratch on it. It played with no issues and that my friends is what I call a steal.

It is also one of the few things to go right lately. Nothing like finding out the rear brakes on the car need parts that are very hard to find and very expensive. My father will have sunk almost one grand into this attempt to do it on the cheap. Meanwhile, winter weather has set in and we only have the front brakes working reliably and one of the rears sort of.

At least the jump to Blu-ray is as impressive as I had hoped. It is as big a leap as from VHS to DVD.

Zulu: The Soundtrack Review

2011-12-05T17:35:00.001-06:00

John Barry is most famous for his many James Bond soundtracks but his resume is considerably larger than that. His score for the movie Zulu is one of his more memorable early efforts, despite being a relatively small amount of music. This is the first of two reviews of different releases.

Watching Zulu the music always stands out due to it being overtly dramatic and “in your face” when it is used. There is nothing subtle about it and that was hardly unusual in the late 1950’s and 60’s scores. Used sparingly in the film, it made a bigger impression then its scanty twenty minutes of use in the long movie should. So it is a pity that the movie was only released in monaural format given how good it was.

One of the nice things about the Web is the ease of obtaining hard to find music in digital format. In this case it was Amazon’s MP3 store that provided me a chance to get the original soundtrack issued on the Ember label for a reasonable price.

Originally put out on stereo LP, the album surprised me in including extra tracks by The John Barry Seven. I scratched my head and wondered why. Then I saw the total time for the film score amounted to 18:26! They clearly needed the extra music to pad the flip side of the LP. Running time for the album is just shy of thirty six minutes.

The stereo presentation of the music is not very impressive and appears to be artificially shifted from the monaural sources used for the movie. Still, it is better for stereo systems and should allow some matrix expansion whether it be Dolby ProLogic or DTS. The MP3 files are of high quality variable bitrate (VBR) and given the source do not lose much fidelity. That will put this release at a bit of a disadvantage in comparison to the Silva Records version I will review in the future. Well, not the only disadvantage.

John Barry got his start as a jazz musician and the use of musical motifs in variation is something he carried over to his orchestral composing. Zulu is an extreme example of this with nearly every track being a version of the main theme. It is an amazing demonstration of doing much with very little, in my opinion.

On to the tracks!

Main Title Theme/Isandhlwana, 1876 – Proud, dramatic, and deliberately over the top, it states the main theme forcefully. Brass and drums dominate before fading into Richard Burton’s narration from the beginning of the movie. Oddly, the narration was placed so it came through the left speaker only.
News of the Massacre/Rorke’s Drift Threatened – This is the fanfare from the title reveal in the movie seguing into a brief restatement of the theme. Not content to restate the theme, Barry continues into a muted version ending with military drums and a lonely trumpet evoking the feeling of being alone against the world. Or in this case against 4,000 Zulus.
Wagons Over – Again the muted version of the theme but punctuated with fanfares to raise the tension. It is a short but effective track conveying the growing conflicts within the outpost.
First Zulu Appearance and Assault – A slower building piece that relies heavily on base drums at first and then adds horns and strings to push the theme. It is all about dread and tension building, then fading and building again. Which is a perfect companion to the ebb and flow of battle, of course.
Durnford’s Horse Arrive and Depart/The Third Assault – The first part of this is oddly out of order on the soundtrack, having accompanied the scene showing the local cavalry before the first attack. As a result, the hopeful and lilting horns playing an optimistic version of the main theme seem out of place. The silence that bridges the two passages aggravates things somewhat. The later half is a stately reprise of the theme.
Zulu’s Final Appearance and Salute – It starts out quiet with underlying tension before becoming a despairing implementation of the theme. It fits the scene in the movie perfectly in the changing moods.
The VC Roll and Men of Harlech – Burton narration from the film lists the Victoria’s Cross winners and fades into a men’s choir singing Men of Harlech. It is somber and at the same time brings forth a feeling of pride, just as in the movie.
Stomp and Shake – Female Zulu singers provide the vocals over very surf/jazz rock guitar for a piece of 60’s pop kitsch. It reminds me somewhat of the soundtrack to Hitari.
High Grass – More of the same, minus the singers and slightly mellower. At this point I was thinking this is 60’s movie music 101.
Zulu Stamp – While more rhythmic, it is more of the same again, albeit in a playful form.
Big Shield – Okay, this is pure 1960’s light jazz material and could have been composed by Henry Mancini for a Pink Panther film. That is not necessarily an insult, but it is hard to adjust to these tracks after listening to the score part of the album.
Zulu Maid – The female singers return for a song that is fluffy lightness.
Monkey Feathers – Ever imagine the main theme of Zulu done on an electric guitar? I had not and that is exactly what this is. The problem is the presentation being like the previous tracks by The John Barry Seven. A more serious attempt at this would be a classic piece of electric guitar -- which is not to be found here, sadly.
Zulu Stamp [Mono Single Mix] – It is what it says it is, the mono version of track 10.
Monkey Feathers [Mono Single Mix] – You guessed it, the mono version of track 13.

The album is a mixed bag thanks to the split personality between orchestral score and pop jazz. While I love the soundtrack, I do not love the pop side of it. Other than Monkey Feathers, it felt flat to my ears and condescending. What was serious is turned into superficial twaddle. I have no idea what Barry was thinking other than “I need to pad out the record.”

On the other hand, the score is wonderful for fans of the film. I cannot say how someone who has not seen the movie would rate the music, but I can guarantee it is not boring. Anyone looking for the Zulu singing from the film will be disappointed because none of that is part of the score. That is a pity, since it was as memorable as the orchestral music.

I recommend Zulu to those who absolutely have to have the original soundtrack, the Richard Burton narrations, or are curious about the pop jazz tracks. Otherwise, there is a much better version available taking advantage of modern recording technology.

Christmas Musings

2011-12-04T19:37:00.001-06:00

It is that time of year when bright lights and inflatable Santa Claus lawn ornaments start appearing. As the years go by, I find myself becoming more like Charlie Brown in lamenting the commercialization of the holiday. Christmas is not supposed to be about such things, but about celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Substitute any good rant about the subject in place of this sentence and it will cover the important points. Instead of dwelling on the negative, I find myself thinking of other things. Especially one thing. It has been nearly five years since that experience and I think of that dying young mother every Christmas time.

It can be strange what haunts you when you travel the musty corridors of memory. Talking to her at that gas station has stayed with me in a way most memories have not. For me, that has become the Christmas memory above all others and I am not sure why.

One thing that I wish to do is surround myself with things more important and real than the trappings of the popular culture. Perhaps watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional is a good start to this. Making the time more Christ centric is always a good idea, but certainly more so when you have things like Black Friday dominating the news. Materialism is not what this is supposed to be about.

So I will turn my eyes toward the spiritual and try not to allow what others do annoy me. So I will meditate and contemplate that sacred first coming of Jesus so long ago in humble circumstances.

Oh my, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s rendition of The First Noel just killed me. Absolutely beautiful.

Drone Shot Down by Iran?

2011-12-04T11:04:00.001-06:00

Show me the pictures or it did not happen is my response. Claiming to do a thing for propaganda purposes is not something unknown with the Iranian government. What makes it interesting is the claim that it was a RQ-170 and that it was forced down mostly intact.

If true, it would be a coup for them in more ways than one since it has advanced stealth construction and materials. While I am no fan on relying on drones, I am skeptical that they succeed in shooting down a stealth aircraft. There will be quite a few repercussions if this does turn out to be true.

I am amused that all the photos I have seen from the news agencies reporting this have shown anything but a RQ-170 Sentinel. So far I have seen decidedly unstealthy Predators from the clueless media. You would think they are able to use Google to find the right bird!

UPDATE:

It appears the Iranians may have gotten their hands on a RQ-170 after all. According to The Telegraph, NATO has admitted to losing control of a drone over western Afghanistan last week. No admission of a shoot down, but a crash has not been ruled out. Looks like we just gave Iran a free peek into top secret stealth technology.

Oh and this is what the drone looks like, for those searching for a picture.

A Small Step into the HD World

2011-11-30T22:06:00.001-06:00

An early Christmas gift from my father arrived yesterday in the form of a Samsung Blu-ray drive for my PC. Since it came with PowerDVD 9, I was able to try out some HD movies on the system for the first time. TRON: Legacy is an exceptional visual experience, so I fired it up in the drive.

What a fantastic looking film it is in HD! While my monitor only goes up to 1680 x 1050 and is exactly between 720p and 1080p, it looked great. Just one problem. No way to do screen captures from PowerDVD and DRM prevents my usual utilities from working correctly. All I get is a black rectangle where the picture is.

Well, being the industrious and stubborn sort I looked for a way around this. While I eventually found one that didn’t cost money (for the moment), it is not the best solution because it involves backing the movie up as an MKV file. Some detail is lost on TRON: Legacy to my eye, but it seemed to do fine with Gammera: Attack of the Legion.

Click on the following for HD sized (1680 pixels wide):

The Disney logo looks sharp here.

Not as satisfied here, but scaling issues may be at work. Oh for a a 1080p monitor!

The film looks grainy, but is miles better than I expected. HD is fun for examining the model buildings that are always destroyed in these films.

It is very silly that screen captures are not allowed. Do the studios really think we will sit and takes stills of every frame to recreate the movies?

I probably will upgrade the PowerDVD software but I am still looking for a better way to do screen captures. AnyDVD is what a lot of people use, but the price of 80 Euros is exorbitant! MakeMKV did an odd job with TRON and there are waves of block distortions going through every scene. Perhaps the DRM is the culprit.

So my first step into the HD world has been taken and I am liking it, despite the screen capturing issues.

Odds and Ends 11-28-2011

2011-11-28T11:49:00.001-06:00

It is sale time across the USA and things are wrapping up with today being Cyber Monday. Sadly the one deal I was most looking forward to today was not as good as expected, so now joy for me. Especially since the back up deal I was eyeballing sold out by today. Instead I got a set of Ginsu knives at Newegg.

Wish I had the money to pony up for this refurbished Samsung 27” monitor. It is the single best deal I have found on Cyber Monday. Maybe somebody else will see it here and get themselves a nice deal.

I did score several Blu-ray deals from Amazon before Black Friday officially began, so I am not empty handed. 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the 1990’s Gammera trilogy will be making their way here. It should be fun installing the Blu-ray drive when it arrives. While my monitor is only 1680 x 1050, it can handle the HDCP copy protection protocols and does better than 720p.

A friend of mine also gave me Fallout: New Vegas as a gift from a Steam sale, so that has been fun. Mad Max meets 50’s radioactive monster movies is how I would describe it. Taking out giant mutant ants is like being dropped into the movie Them, an old favorite of mine. You can even set them on fire like in the movie.

Watching the presidential primary for the GOP has been painful. Cain’s implosion isn’t as much from the false accusations but from the disastrous handling of nearly everything by his staff. He is badly damaged by this and it shows they are not remotely ready for taking on the well oiled Obama machine.

Meanwhile, delusional conservatives have convinced themselves that Newt Gingrich is a true conservative and electable. Both are false propositions and they need to deal with reality. I say that as a very conservative man. How they can rally around someone with the immense personal and political baggage that Newt has is beyond me.

“Anybody but Romney” is not sufficient to explain this madness. With Mitt you may not know what you are getting as far as worrying he’ll betray conservatives, but with Newt you are guaranteed that he will stab you in the back, front, sides, and then bite you on the ankles. Just because someone is good in debates does not mean you ignore his track record. We already have a raging narcissist in the White House and replacing him with another is not going to go well.

Yesterday was a lost day again. Being very ill I ended up sleeping through most of it. Having watched a bad movie for Turkey Day, I decided to start rewatching Stargate: Atlantis over from the beginning. Oddly enough it evoked a feeling of better times and that is somewhat discomfiting.

UPDATE on Herman Cain:

Put a fork in him, he is completely done. At this point it doesn’t matter whether or not he is guilty, there is only so much damage that can be taken. It is also a cautionary tale in regards to Gingrich. Once the media takes him seriously his multiple infidelities will get a lot of attention.

Gratitude

2011-11-23T15:39:00.001-06:00

Being more grateful for things is something I am always working on and I find myself needing to more this Thanksgiving. For some reason, ready reasons to be thankful are fleeing me at the moment.

One thing I need to do is stop comparing my life to that of others around me. It will come up short 99% of the time as far as achievements go, so letting go of that benchmark would help a great deal. But that is easier said than done, so it may be a few more years before that happens.

Perhaps I should write some things out and hope to actually feel them a little more tomorrow.

Some things to be grateful for, in random order:

Food
Shelter
Heat
Electricity
Indoor plumbing
The Atonement made by Jesus Christ
Friends
Family
Music
Art
Sunlight
Books
The Internet
Cats (depending on patience levels)
B Movies (Perfect for sick days)
Gunpowder
Kind words (even if they embarrass)

Well, I got farther than I thought I would, given the headache I’ve had most of the day. It is a start, at least.

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and remembers what the holiday commemorates. From articles in the papers, a lot of people are not feeling the spirit due to economic problems. The pilgrims would look at what most of us have and think us wealthy beyond belief. So please, find some things to give thanks for!

Zulu (1964)

2011-11-22T14:31:00.001-06:00

Few war movies are as rousing and inspiring as this heavily fictionalized depiction of the badly out numbered British soldiers resisting an attack by 4,000 Zulu warriors in 1879. Beautiful cinematography, a sharp script, excellent acting, and and a memorable score all contribute to one of the best movies ever made.

By the late 1800’s, the British empire stretched across the planet, an amazing achievement for a small island nation. But they were stretched thin and the natives often got restless. So was the case in South Africa, where the Brits had subjugated not only the native tribes, but the Dutch descended Boers who had colonized first. It is against this backdrop that Zulu takes place.

For the purposes of the review, I will not go into all the historical inaccuracies in the film -- not even those which do grave injustice to some of the men depicted. Instead, I suggest going to rorkesdriftvc.com to read about the real men and events. It is an excellent site and worth devoting serious time to.

The movie starts out in old fashioned style by going straight to the credits which are of the no-nonsense kind. But the music is wonderful, large and dramatic, promising great things to come. As the music fades, a narration by Richard Burton informs us of the complete wipeout of 1,500 British soldiers on the slopes of the mountain Isandhwlana at the hands of Zulu warriors. A full fledged rebellion has begun.

The message is dated November 23, 1879. The movie depicts the events of November 22 to the morning of the 23rd at Rorke’s Drift, but is not very clear about it.

Sobering is how I would describe the first images of the movie. A slow pan across the bodies at Isandhwlana reveals the victorious Zulu warriors starting to loot the bodies for rifles. One brave raises a rifle to the sky and we finally see the name of the movie presented with a fanfare. Already there is a feeling that this will be an intense movie.

That makes things jarring when the setting changes to Zulu dancers at a village. It is all part of a mass marriage ceremony being overseen by King Cetewayo (Chief Buthelezi) where young maidens are being married to older men. As shown in the rest of the film, the Zulu’s are excellent singers and they are almost hypnotic vocalists. I should note that the girls are topless and it is a lengthy sequence. More on that later.

At the wedding are Reverend Witt (Jack Hawkins) and his daughter; Christian missionaries attempting to convert the locals. An interesting discussion about the marriages gives an insight into both cultures of the time. The daughter is newly arrived in South Africa and does not like what is going on. Or so she says, but her eyes say something else. The Swedish minister disapproves of the mass marriage since the girls may soon be widows, but goes on to point out to his daughter that at least the girls are getting brave men for husbands.

Meanwhile, Margareta (Ulla Jacobsson) is busy being the stereotypical repressed Victorian lady and being improperly captivated by the dancing. Yes, Zulu is filled with lots of stereotypes but they are mostly too well executed to criticize. However, this particular bit sticks out like a sore thumb. Jacobsson does the most she can with a thankless role.

A messenger interrupts the festivities with the news of the great victory which leads to the upset missionaries hastily leaving to warn the soldiers at Rorke’s Drift that they are being targeted. Their departure does not go smoothly, but it does demonstrate the discipline employed by the Zulu leadership. Now things begin to start moving again.

Or do they? It is time to introduce the main protagonists. Lieutenant John Chard (Stanley Baker) of the Royal Engineers is at Rorke’s Drift to build a bridge. Not exactly exciting duty and he turns out to be a very by the books officer with little tolerance for slacking off. Having only just arrived, he has taken the local troops and laborers to work on the bridge.

This is not particularly appreciated by the local officer in charge, Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine), who is an upper class twit stereotype. His approach to leading is a great deal more lax and he even allows his troops to have a choir. Having returned from hunting, he is more than a little condescending to the engineer upon discovering his presence.

Back at the garrison, we are introduced to an array of soldiers including: Private Hook (James Booth), a thief and malingerer; Surgeon Reynolds (Patrick Magee), a somewhat ill tempered doctor; Tommy, a former farmer with a soft spot for animals; and Colour-Sargeant Bourne (Nigel Green) an experienced leader. There are many more and I could spend the entire review going over them, but I will not. Suffice it to say, they all have distinctly individual personalities and good lines during the course of the film. You will get attached to the motley group.

A pair of riders disrupt the peace with the news of the massacre earlier in the morning. One of them stays behind, a boer named Adendorff (Gert Van Der Bergh) who seems to know a great deal about the Zulus and their tactics. This is good, because Chard and Bromhead do not. A conflict soon arises between the two and Chard’s seniority of several months puts him in charge despite not being a combat soldier. Working together is going to be difficult.

Chard compensates for all this by being very decisive and immediately formulates a plan for defenses in the dirt. To Bromhead’s horror, the engineer plans to fight a defensive battle behind barricades. But the decision has been made and they will stay and fight. It is an insane decision on the face of it, for two Impies of two thousand warriors each are coming. The defenders are seven officers, thirty-six wounded, and ninety-seven fit for duty plus forty levies.

A brief moment of hope arrives in the form of local volunteer cavalrymen who ride to the gate of the makeshift barricades to speak to the officers in charge. What looks like salvation quickly turns into a tense confrontation when they refuse to help defend the outpost. Raging at the departing riders, Chard looses face in front of the troops he is commanding and who do not know him.

The silence and stillness of the troops is driven home by the camera as it swoops slowly across the defenders of Rorke’s Drift. Despair, uncertainty, and fear are all apparent on the faces of the soldiers. It is a terrifically human moment.

Adding to the difficulty is the panicked fire and brimstone preaching of Rev. Witt. His devotion to God is only dwarfed by his pacifism and the Swede convinces all the local help to run off. His further calls for the sick and wounded to be taken out by him leads to one of the more pointed responses I have seen in a movie. Witt is not shown in a sympathetic light at all.

While Chard tries to establish himself over the men and ready the defenses, the missionary continues to undermine him despite being locked up. A strange sound in the distance can be heard, like a train…

The Zulu’s have arrived. Above left is a shot that gives you an idea of how small an outpost Rorke’s Drift is, with all the defenders between the hospital and church buildings. The image to the right is one I hastily stitched together from two screen captures to show the Zulu forces arrayed against the British. Quite the contrast in forces, eh?

With their officers commanding from a hilltop, the Zulu braves make their first approach toward the South wall. It is a strangely slow approach, with them banging on their shields with their short spears and apparently taunting the redcoats. Shot after shot is fired into the warriors who stop well short of the defenses. Eventually they retreat and the soldiers think they have won a victory.

Soon it is made clear that is not the case and once again fear begins to grip the defenders. Determined to get rid of the cancer in his midst, Chard orders the missionaries out on their carriage. Witt screams “You are all going to die!” as they ride out, proving himself to be particularly unhelpful at this critical juncture. This leads to one of the greatest quotes from a war movie:

Private Cole: “Why us?”

Colour-Sergeant Bourne: “Because we are here, lad. Nobody else. Just us.”

It is a poignant exchange that echoes across the centuries. Zulu is filled with many such small but powerful moments, including Chard’s hand shaking as he reloads his revolver, a soldier dropping his bayonet, and Bourne reciting parts of Psalm 46.

With the missionaries gone, the battle is joined in earnest with the rifles taken from Isandhwlana coming into play. While the Zulu’s are not good shots, they make up for it in volume. Casualties on both sides slowly mount and it is time for a full out attack.

Human wave tactics are used and soon the outer line finds themselves up close and personal with the spears and shields of the angry natives shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!” in Zulu. The scene is one of confusion and brutal hand to hand fighting with spears versus bayonets.

Attackers swiftly make their way into the compound and Chard is taken down with a blow to the head. The hobbling Swiss born Corporal Schiess (Dickie Owen) battles with rifle and crutch to the rescue of the fallen officer in an amazing feat of bravery. It is only one of many scenes of bravery in the movie.

The fanatic and fearless Zulu’s are as well disciplined as their British counterparts, but even great numbers find it very hard to overcome better armed defenders. It is nearly a beautiful thing to watch the awful carnage inflicted by stepped rank volley firing. The soundtrack is used sparingly in the movie and it adds greatly to the “you are there” feel.

Multiple attacks, all planned out carefully by the Zulu leaders, probe for weaknesses in the defense as the day grinds by. Fighting takes to the rooftops, such as they are, for a suspense filled assault on the hospital.

With wounded and sick troops still in their beds, the walking wounded fight for their lives and the lives of their fellow soldiers as the building catches fire. It is a grim and relentless battle that goes into the night. With the hospital destroyed, the men exhausted, outnumbered, and running out of water things look very bleak indeed.

Can the defenders of Rorke’s Drift survive until reinforcements come?

Thoughts

Wow, what a movie!

Can a story be called an epic if it only takes place over two days and mainly in one location? That is the question facing me at the moment. Technically the answer has to be no, but Zulu does feel like an epic. Everything about it is large and grand, even if Rorke’s Drift is not.

Zulu is a thoughtful action movie which is not something you see much of these days. In many ways it is an odd mix of in your face anti-war statements while romanticizing battle with a dash of pacifist bashing mixed in. It also celebrates the Welsh and the Zulus while running down the English upper class. Class warfare is a subtheme of the plot, but even it gets thrown out by the end. Perhaps the truth that all men become brothers when fighting side by side is part of the intent, but it is is hard to tell when it pulls in so many different directions.

Perhaps all of this reflects the soul of Stanley Baker more than anything else. He was an ardent Socialist ( he belonged to the political party) and patriotic Welshman. The film was very much his project and I suspect he poured much of himself into it. It was one of the few times he played a good guy and he preferred playing heavies.

I mentioned romanticized battle earlier, but that may be unintentional given the very anti-war statement near the end of the film. It is the bravery of the men that shades Zulu in a very sentimental way which is solidly masculine. No question about it, this is a guy’s movie with a vengeance. The only female with a speaking role is mainly there to get abused verbally and physically by the soldiers. Frankly, Margareta Witt could have been omitted from the film and nobody would have noticed.

The battles are very well staged and the camera work is exceptional. Cy Endfield did a fantastic job directing the movie. Whether it be small character moments, purely visual meditations, or frenetic combat the film never stumbles. It did not hurt that they filmed in Natal and used the incredible scenery there as a backdrop. Visually stunning only begins to describe the cinematography.

The acting is excellent throughout the cast with special kudos to Stanley Baker and Michael Caine. This whole production was Baker’s baby and his Chard is a believably flawed martinet in over his head. Caine made his starring debut in the movie and his talent already shows in this early role.

Being unrated, a few warnings about the content are merited. Zulu is not a suitable film for kids or young teens, mostly thanks to the nudity involving the local Zulu maidens in the beginning of the movie. Many of them are clearly underage themselves in this accurate portrayal of the culture. Think National Geographic Magazine and you will get the idea of what is shown. There are also two attempted assaults on Miss Witt and coarse language toward her from the soldiers.

The copious amounts of violence are not accompanied by a like amount of blood. While there is some, it is done with extreme restraint and there is no true gore. Even the surgeon’s operating scenes demand more from your imagination than is represented. Simply put, the violence is not sensationalized.

Parents will want to check this film out for themselves before allowing their teens to view it.

I highly recommend Zulu to history and military enthusiasts, those who appreciate bravery, and anyone who likes a really good movie. It is one of my all time favorite films.

Technical

For most of my life, Zulu was something I got to see on television in a hacked down, panned and scanned, worn out print version. Having recorded it off of TBS back when it was a still good channel movie channel, I later replaced it with a DVD that was a transfer of the VHS version. It was the first time I got to see it in widescreen format, but the picture was a muddy mess. I had despaired of ever seeing it in a good issue, so it was really something to see the MGM DVD at a local Best Buy and it was an instant buy.

The transfer is anamorphic widescreen at a 2.35:1 ratio and is of superb visual quality. It is absolutely gorgeous and has only been eclipsed by the Blu-ray edition from what I have read. Colors are bright and vivid making the stunning scenery shown a true cinematic experience that does justice to the 70mm film stock it was shot on.

The sound is Dolby Digital monaural and of excellent fidelity. John Barry’s terrific score sounds great, as does the singing of the Zulu’s. You won’t have to strain to hear any dialogue with this DVD.

The only extras included are optional subtitles in English, French, and Spanish plus the theatrical trailer. That trailer features a different logo than used in the movie and is completely sensationalistic. It treats the film as a B movie and does not reflect the movie well at all. That just proves poor advertising is eternal, I suppose.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

The dawn of the second day is shown in breath taking shots mixed with Chard approaching his exhausted troops. With the rising sun comes the reappearance of the Zulus on the hilltops, guaranteeing more bloodshed to come. It must have been something to have seen this in a 70mm equipped theater in 1964.

Ask someone what scene they remember the most from Zulu and it will almost always be when the two sides battled in song. Men of Harlech being sung by the Welsh soldiers is a stirring moment of bravery in the face of death. An absolutely riveting scene.

A piece of disinformation from years past was that the movie was filmed at the actual site of Rorke’s Drift and that you could make out the monument pole in the scenes where the Zulus charge. Having fallen for that and relayed it to others, I wish to set things right. As the above still shows, that is the flag pole they are running by, not a monument. The movie was filmed in Natal State Park and not at the original location.

The ranked volley firing is still fascinating to watch after all these years. The destruction unleashed made it clear that attacking firearms with spears was not wise, especially if the rifles were allowed to be concentrated. The flying platoon was another tactic that impressed me when young.

The roll call is another scene that resonated mainly due to the gallows humor that soldiers have always employed. It also made for a great showcase for Nigel Green’s sympathetic but firm sergeant. What an interesting contrast it was between him and Reverend Witt with both being good Christian men but handling things completely differently. In some ways the movie can be viewed as Christian bashing, but Colour-Sergeant Bourne nullifies it to a good degree.

The ending was perfect. Take a look at Chard and Bromhead’s faces as they see the Zulu’s having returned after vanishing. Shock and despair is how I would describe it. Having the Zulu warriors salute the British with singing before leaving is highly emotional, if utter balderdash. In reality that did not happen. But it this is romanticized warfare after all.

The final scenes with Richard Burton reading off the Victoria’s Cross winners while showing the actors who played them is well executed and generates a nearly nostalgic feeling after being with them for the past two hours plus. Here the anti-war statement given by Chard earlier is reinforced by his staring at the fallen bodies of the enemy and planting a shield upright.

Notice the reinforcements have arrived in the form of uniformed cavalry. In reality, it was the arrival of more troops that caused the Zulu’s to retreat. Only fifteen defenders were killed and sixteen wounded, but they were running out of ammo. It was only a matter of time and dead Zulu’s consuming lead before they would have fallen.

To the Future… AND BEYOND!!!

2011-11-21T10:39:00.001-06:00

I have no idea why I typed that title, but there it is. Working on posts for the future is the topic, it beats me what the “beyond” is all about.

Zulu is up for my next movie review and is currently in the first draft stage. Being a beautiful film, I took far too many screen captures and culling them too too long. There will be two companion reviews of the soundtrack, one right away and another to come later. Any excuse to play John Barry composed music is a good excuse.

It looks like I will be getting an early Christmas present of a Blu-ray player for the PC, which means redoing the screen caps for TRON: Legacy and the making of lots of wallpaper for my desktop. With Zulu out in an affordable and apparently brilliant Blu-ray, I will have to get my hands on that sooner or later.

Captain America: The First Avenger will be reviewed in the near future in DVD and Blu-ray. That will be easier than usual, since I have the in-theater review to work off of.

I will be starting reviews of one my three favorite animes of all time, Area 88. Besides Studio Ghibli’s movies, this TV series helped convince me that the format can produce legitimately good material. It has a film noir feel about it without being visually noir, strangely enough. It certainly is grim material, being a story about mercenary pilots fighting and dying in the skies over a fictional Middle East country in the 1980’s.

Sorting all my DVD’s into alphabetical order has shaken up what I planned to review yet again. The desire to tread down less seen paths is strong and that means my more obscure titles will get some attention. But do I dare review The Lord of the Rings movies as well? If nothing else, they would be good exercise in shortening reviews which is something I need to work on.

I am still working up the courage to review the worst movie ever made. Being one of the few in the world to actually watch the entire thing, I dread seeing it again.

Health 11-21-2011

2011-11-21T10:12:00.001-06:00

Well, all in all that was a lost week. This year has been hard enough that I found myself surprised to be taken down by intensification of my CFS symptoms rather than a complication on top. Ironically, that may be a sign of improvement.

On to the new week.

Health 11-17-2011

2011-11-17T18:18:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I was sure today was going to be a good day, one where I would get things done and be productive. Reality, however, disagreed with me once today arrived. The crossword puzzle was a warning, taking sixteen minutes despite being painfully easy. But Audiosurf went well so it looked good. Ah well.

No major health issues to report, other than the fatigue was bad from the beginning and even typing this out is difficult due to spacing out. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.