Movies

Hi there. It’s been a while. I had a whirlwind of activity over the last few weeks, both on the work and podcasting front, and quite frankly getting around to writing up these update posts was beyond my available bandwidth.

This week I’ve been in the Netherlands for work, so between jet lag and meetings I’ve been pretty wiped out. Still, I’ve managed to get a few non-work related things done as well.

This week has been both incredibly busy, but also frustrating vague on things I can share. It doesn’t help that I’ve had a cold kicking my ass for the last few days.

This week in the world of Daniel: I updated my quote service project to use my reusable django-quotes app. This should make maintenance easier. Since this is a backwards-incompatible change, I also updated ewdiscordbot and ewtwitterbot to use the new API endpoints.

Sam Sykes has published a reflection on the life of Shin Sang-Ok, and on an artist’s need to create. The idiot ninja action film I watched as a kid was the last legs of a man who was being denied his needs for a final time.

"Shut up, crime!" I just finished watching the film Super, written and directed by James Gunn. I’m having a hard time characterizing how I feel about it. Normally, if I were going to write something about a film, I would spend some time trying to develop the best way to get across my opinion of the movie.

Let The Right One In is a novel from Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, and also now a film from Swedish director Tomas Alfredsson. I’ve consumed both now, and while they each should be judged on their own merits I’m going to attempt to review both the novel and the movie in one post.

I went to go see Watchmen opening night, and I thought it would be worth my while to jot down some of my thoughts, now that I have had a couple to days to think about the film.

Via /.: Be still my beating heart! Due to the enormous pressure and demand from fans, LucasFilm is going to be releasing the original unedited versions of the Star Wars trilogy on DVD.

Via Warren Ellis: Here is a trailer for Cthulu: The Movie, with none other than Tori Spelling performing in it. From the looks of the official site, the production appears to be some sort of indie flick.

Against my better judgment, I went to go see the movie adaptation of Silent Hill this weekend. While I’ll agree with the guys at Penny Arcade that I should not pretend this was a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, I will say that I enjoyed it.

As usual, my review is being written somewhat late. This Saturday, I went to go see V for Vendetta at the local IMAX. I have to admit that despite my excitement, I was very worried.

Via Boing Boing and Digg: Recently, Brad Hunt of the MPAA presented their plans for requiring DRM technology that would effectively close the “analog-hole” to prevent movie piracy. Unexpectedly, the rest of Hollywood showed some reason and reacted very negatively to the proposal.

Just about every fan of the creative team of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean has heard of the new movie MirrorMask, and just about every fan waited as impatiently as I for it to reach the theaters.

I recently came upon a Boing Boing post regarding a new online store serving up digital media for the public. The store is Common Media, which has been supplying free fair-use media for a while now, but as a commerce site it comes in two flavors: Common Tunes and Common Flix, which are music and video stores respectively.

Follow the magic link to Orson Scott Card’s review of Serenity. Click the magic text!

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves.

If you have not seen Serenity yet, please consider going to see it this weekend. Or if you have seen it, please consider seeing it again this weekend. Sources at Universal indicate that this weekend’s ticket sales will determine whether they greenlight the next two movies in the Big Damn Trilogy.

I just got back from the midnight showing of Serenity, and it kicked my ass. I really really enjoyed it. I was a bit worried going into it, and I hope that the emotional impact of the film is as significant for those who haven’t seen the series, but I think it turned into a great sci-fi flick.

For those of you sci-fi fans who may have been living in a cave, the movie Serenity comes out this Friday. As I am sure you know, this film is based off of the wonderful, if short-lived television series Firefly.