POLARITY 164
this entry brought to you by the beastie boys, "looking down the barrel of a gun"
The Terminal It's really nice that Steven Spielburg has gotten into the position where he can do what he wants, and between gigantic sci-fi blockbusters and uber-important Oscar-baiting films, what he's chosen to do a lot lately are these smaller, more fun character driven pieces that for some reason always involve Tom Hanks (he was also in Catch Me If You Can, and now this). Tom Hanks no longer needs to prove how great an actor he is and again chooses whatever he likes, in this case, a fun but must-have-been-exhausting roles as a foreigner that speaks no English, whos country ends up not existing while in mid-flight, and there fore has no visa and cannot legally leave the airport terminal... for 9 damn months. The script is not perfect. There's a bad guy that seems to be bad for the sake of having an antagonist. The love interest (played by an impossibly young-looking Catherine Zeta Jones), seems to be there simply to have a love interest. But Hanks is at his 100% charming self (not to mention that he is utterly believable as someone who has never spoken English or been to America before), and Spielburg approaches the project with such affection that you can't help but completely fall in love with the movie.
The Nintendo Revolution's controller My initial reaction was a jaw-dropped, horrified what the fuck? I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to play games with that stupid thing? But then, after some thought about it, I realized I'm probably going to end up liking it more than the others. Microsoft's 360 controller looks exactly the same as before except now the green button in the middle actually does something; Sony's PS3 "Boomerang" controller looks obnoxious but it has no real features or anything different than its predecessor other than the fact that it's gay. The Revolution is drastically different, and it's not hard to immediately see how it may effect games. Right off the bat it looks like a remote control, so you can already imagine movement of the controller itself effecting gameplay. Immediately you've got something that's going to change video games in the future, whereas you can't say that about the controllers of the competition. So it looks stupid and it'll take some getting used to, but I think I realized I have faith in Nintendo, because afterall, while Sony and Microsoft are incredibly successful companies without their game divisions, all Nintendo does is games. So I remain cautiously optimistic.
Awesome Album Art Alert! It's by the Broken Spindles, and the album is called Inside/Absent. Is the male figure in the foreground coming to bed or leaving?
Alias, Marvel Comics, issues 1-5 Once upon a time I picked up a couple of issues of a comic book named Jinx for a buck total. And I completely fell in love with the writer, Brian Michael Bendis. Several years later I'm back into mainstream comic books, and I find out he's one of the most popular writers write now. I was disappointed with the Ultimate Spider-Man book I read, but this... This is everything I liked about Bendis. It's a book about an ex-superheroine who's become a private investigator, and in the first story, takes a case and accidentally ends up finding out the identity of Captain America. Wonderful , natural, fluid dialogue, and gripping, methodically paced artwork by Michael Gaydos. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to do comic books in the future for a living. Can't wait to read more.
The video for Electric Six, "Danger, High Voltage!" Lead singer Dick Valentine players a filthy-rich pauper with a bulbous, glowing crotch, who can barely contain his lust for a strange old woman with glowing breasts who lip-synch's Jack White's impossibly high-pitched falsetto shrieks. Hilarity ensues.
THE BAD
The Vines, Winning Days So, on a whim, I decided to buy the Vines' sophomore album, the week it came out (yes, this was a while ago). I'd heard exactly two songs of theirs from a demo disk from SPIN, and since they'd gotten tons of hype back in 2002-2003 from the success of the song "Get Free" (which I hadn't heard yet), along with The White Stripes and The Strokes, both of whom I liked, I thought I'd dive in. Well, the album's opener, "Ride" is an awesome, Nirvana-esque rocker. The album's closer, the even more awesome Nirvana-esque rocker "Fuck the World" was one of the best of 2004. But in between? Holy Jesus Christ it was boring. What the hell happened?
The Faces of Meth In case you were wondering where I got that picture of the crack ho from the entry the other day, I got it here. A police officer was going over mug shots and noticed how drastically people had changed over a matter of a few years on meth, and decided to post his findings on the web. If you know anyone that's thinking about getting into meth, or if you yourself have thought about doing meth, for the love of Christ, you've got to click the link. And if you are on meth already, well, have fun with your missing teeth. It allows you to whistle better!
Giant Magazine I still love this magazine because it's just hip enough and just geeky enough without being elitist. But my absolute favorite aspect of the first five issues was the plethora, the multitude of footnotes liberally added at the bottom of every page, but since they went monthly-- they're gone! ANd that was such a huge part of the magazine's personality!
The video for Nine Inch Nails' "Only" You know those toys you often find on office tables, that have 100 or so flat needles, and you put your hand on them and it makes a relief? The video's whole concept is Trent is stuck ine one of those. It's a visually striking video that is worth watching once, but when I found out it was by David Fricking Fincher, I was wholly unsatisfied.
The Yin Yang Twins I don't care how many times, in publicity for their new album, they're photographed looking serious and professional. They still suck.
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with love from CRS @ 6:53 PM
Monday, October 10, 2005
The Terminal It's really nice that Steven Spielburg has gotten into the position where he can do what he wants, and between gigantic sci-fi blockbusters and uber-important Oscar-baiting films, what he's chosen to do a lot lately are these smaller, more fun character driven pieces that for some reason always involve Tom Hanks (he was also in Catch Me If You Can, and now this). Tom Hanks no longer needs to prove how great an actor he is and again chooses whatever he likes, in this case, a fun but must-have-been-exhausting roles as a foreigner that speaks no English, whos country ends up not existing while in mid-flight, and there fore has no visa and cannot legally leave the airport terminal... for 9 damn months. The script is not perfect. There's a bad guy that seems to be bad for the sake of having an antagonist. The love interest (played by an impossibly young-looking Catherine Zeta Jones), seems to be there simply to have a love interest. But Hanks is at his 100% charming self (not to mention that he is utterly believable as someone who has never spoken English or been to America before), and Spielburg approaches the project with such affection that you can't help but completely fall in love with the movie.
The Nintendo Revolution's controller My initial reaction was a jaw-dropped, horrified what the fuck? I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to play games with that stupid thing? But then, after some thought about it, I realized I'm probably going to end up liking it more than the others. Microsoft's 360 controller looks exactly the same as before except now the green button in the middle actually does something; Sony's PS3 "Boomerang" controller looks obnoxious but it has no real features or anything different than its predecessor other than the fact that it's gay. The Revolution is drastically different, and it's not hard to immediately see how it may effect games. Right off the bat it looks like a remote control, so you can already imagine movement of the controller itself effecting gameplay. Immediately you've got something that's going to change video games in the future, whereas you can't say that about the controllers of the competition. So it looks stupid and it'll take some getting used to, but I think I realized I have faith in Nintendo, because afterall, while Sony and Microsoft are incredibly successful companies without their game divisions, all Nintendo does is games. So I remain cautiously optimistic.
Awesome Album Art Alert! It's by the Broken Spindles, and the album is called Inside/Absent. Is the male figure in the foreground coming to bed or leaving?
Alias, Marvel Comics, issues 1-5 Once upon a time I picked up a couple of issues of a comic book named Jinx for a buck total. And I completely fell in love with the writer, Brian Michael Bendis. Several years later I'm back into mainstream comic books, and I find out he's one of the most popular writers write now. I was disappointed with the Ultimate Spider-Man book I read, but this... This is everything I liked about Bendis. It's a book about an ex-superheroine who's become a private investigator, and in the first story, takes a case and accidentally ends up finding out the identity of Captain America. Wonderful , natural, fluid dialogue, and gripping, methodically paced artwork by Michael Gaydos. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to do comic books in the future for a living. Can't wait to read more.
The video for Electric Six, "Danger, High Voltage!" Lead singer Dick Valentine players a filthy-rich pauper with a bulbous, glowing crotch, who can barely contain his lust for a strange old woman with glowing breasts who lip-synch's Jack White's impossibly high-pitched falsetto shrieks. Hilarity ensues.
THE BAD
The Vines, Winning Days So, on a whim, I decided to buy the Vines' sophomore album, the week it came out (yes, this was a while ago). I'd heard exactly two songs of theirs from a demo disk from SPIN, and since they'd gotten tons of hype back in 2002-2003 from the success of the song "Get Free" (which I hadn't heard yet), along with The White Stripes and The Strokes, both of whom I liked, I thought I'd dive in. Well, the album's opener, "Ride" is an awesome, Nirvana-esque rocker. The album's closer, the even more awesome Nirvana-esque rocker "Fuck the World" was one of the best of 2004. But in between? Holy Jesus Christ it was boring. What the hell happened?
The Faces of Meth In case you were wondering where I got that picture of the crack ho from the entry the other day, I got it here. A police officer was going over mug shots and noticed how drastically people had changed over a matter of a few years on meth, and decided to post his findings on the web. If you know anyone that's thinking about getting into meth, or if you yourself have thought about doing meth, for the love of Christ, you've got to click the link. And if you are on meth already, well, have fun with your missing teeth. It allows you to whistle better!
Giant Magazine I still love this magazine because it's just hip enough and just geeky enough without being elitist. But my absolute favorite aspect of the first five issues was the plethora, the multitude of footnotes liberally added at the bottom of every page, but since they went monthly-- they're gone! ANd that was such a huge part of the magazine's personality!
The video for Nine Inch Nails' "Only" You know those toys you often find on office tables, that have 100 or so flat needles, and you put your hand on them and it makes a relief? The video's whole concept is Trent is stuck ine one of those. It's a visually striking video that is worth watching once, but when I found out it was by David Fricking Fincher, I was wholly unsatisfied.
The Yin Yang Twins I don't care how many times, in publicity for their new album, they're photographed looking serious and professional. They still suck.
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