Tag: Links

Whew! Ariesna & I just got back from watching Ghost in the Shell 2 – Innocence. Unfortunately, it was playing at what’s arguably the worst theater in town but that’s a topic for another day. This is one movie that I’m going to have to rewatch a few times before I get a real handle on it. Innocence has so many layers of complexity that it can be somewhat difficult to follow what the film maker was trying to accomplish. There’s some deep thinking going on in the film both about what is reality and where we draw the line between what is human and what’s not. So the story has a definite heaviness to it that I wasn’t really in the mood for but it is something that I want to see again when I can watch it more at my leisure.

As for the animation, it was top notch but there were a couple of scenes where the blending of 2D & 3D animation didn’t quite mess right and it made the characters feel like cardboard cut-outs in a grocery store. Overall though the visuals were excellent and the movie had a good flow to it.

On a side note: Batou’s dog is too cool. 🙂

I was off reading Adam Gessaman‘s site and noticed that Firefox had tossed an icon that I’d never noticed before into my status bar. I clicked on it and was presented with a list of alternative style sheets to use in viewing the site!

Ok, maybe this is only cool to geeks like me who enjoy web design but wouldn’t it be nice if every site offered you the ability to change your style sheet at will? And didn’t require some crappy Javascript to pull it off?
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Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to go and see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Wow was that ever a mistake!

I went in knowing that most of the reviewers out there had said it was bad and about half of the geeks were saying the same1. However the trailers for the movie looked just gorgeous with an impressive style that felt very much like one would expect a 1940’s pulp sci-fi movie to look2, from the giant robots to the cars down to the ray pistol. The one interesting thing about the movie that one should remember is that the entire thing was shot in front of a green screen and there were no locations. All the background stuff was computer-rendered. Then it appears that they pushed the film of the actors through some filters to add a bit of noise & distortion into the film, giving a feeling of being from the 40’s. These computerized specials effects were unfortunately the only good thing about the movie. The writing of the movie was wretched. The acting was sub-par at best. If you wish to know more details, following the (more) link but be warned that there are some spoilers mixed in there.
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