Tag Archives: movies

Movie of the week

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Burzynski

Burzynski (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

My favorite film this week is a documentary called “Burzynski.”  It is about a Texas doctor who appears to have come with an unconventional treatment for cancer that is more effective for many cancers than chemo and radiation and yet is totally safe with no known side effects.

The film portrays the repeated (but ineffective) attacks on the doctor by the Texas AMA, the FDA, and others, as well as the power that the pharmaceutical industry has over today’s FDA. It is both powerful and emotional, and it is a wake up call that shows (as if we didn’t know this already) the power of monied interests in the country that control the levers of governmental power.

The movie is not available on DVD, but is viewable via streaming on Netflix. Check it out.

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Qwikster is dead

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Netflix has backed down on its plan to separate its streaming and DVD business. According to Reed Hastings, there will continue to be one company and one website.

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

It was a stupid idea from the beginning. NFLX is up nearly 10% in pre-market trading.

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DVD of the week

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Hanna is a fun movie. A romp (with your nerves on edge) from beginning to end. It is an action comic book brought to life, but in no way silly or meaningless. It’s not real life, but a fantastic reality and a stereotypical movie reality. Action galore, good acting and engaging plot twists. It is all hung around a somewhat lame premise and is deeply strange, but the acting, the dialog, the pacing, the editing, and its somewhat bizarre premise is pulled off with aplomb. It is X-Files plus The Bourne Connection plus Twin Peaks. Trust me, even though it seems unlikely, it all works.

Hanna, the lead character, is somewhere between 13 and 20 years old. Because of her strange upbringing, she barely knows the basics about boys. And at the same time, she is a bred killer … when forced into it.  Eric Bana is her father and Cate Blanchett is her mother. What could possibly go wrong here?

It is a fun and well-executed trip around the world from Morocco to Germany. It is exactly what the movies (and home-viewed DVDs) were made for.

If you have a blu-ray player, I would suggest that you get the HD version.

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A three screen strategy

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Image representing Robert Scoble as depicted i...

Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble writes that one of the most important parts of Apple’s announcement today will be the unveiling of an advance “three screen strategy,” relying on a convergence of the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV using Apple’s AirPlay technology. You can read his post, which I highly recommend, here, but you will need to scroll down a bit to get to the meat of his description of the “three screen strategy.”

While I doubt that Apple is calling this plan the “three screen strategy,” I do think that Scoble is right on in predicting the criticality to Apple of successfully deploying both its AirPlay technology and licensing deals with content providers.  Apple needs to conquer the living room and the mobile space and iCloud plus AirPlay is the path to victory.

Apple has worked for years on its Apple TV “hobby” and, given the big moves in media distribution over the past few months by Netflix, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Spotify and others, now is the time for Apple to bring the pieces together in a compelling way. They have the talent and the reputation to do it. The only question is whether the media giants will play along or will block it despite their long-term best interests in wider paid distribution.

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Movie pick of the day

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Win Win is not a great movie. It has its problems, particularly regarding the legalities (or illegalities) portrayed in a film focused on a lawyer and the complicated incentives that lead him astray. Despite the questionable behavior of the leading character, his human decency is never seriously called into question.

My opening paragraph makes it sound bad, but on an emotional level it is a pretty good film, carried along by the energy of its entire cast.  Paul Giamatti, as usual, plays a sort of loser who perseveres in the end and, as it happens, he is (luckily) married to Amy Ryan. Very engaging and enjoyable in a formulaic way, that when executed correctly totally works. The acting overcomes the weakness of the story line and I found it both moving and funny. Worth a watch, especially if you liked The Station Agent, a movie with the same director (Tom McCarthy).

Also, it features the increasingly ubiquitous Jeffrey Tambor.

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Tech quote of the day

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I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.

– Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, apologizing for the manner of announcing the company’s recent price increases.  The service is splitting into two services and Hastings provides the details here.

But the bottom line is that the two services really will be separate: different websites, different queues, separate entry of credit card info, and you would have to enter ratings of a single film on both sites. Further, it appears that you will not even be able to tell on the DVD site which movies are available for streaming. In other words, you would need to search twice for all movies and, even worse, if a movie not available for streaming when you add it to your Netflix queue, but becomes so later, will not show up on your streaming queue and will not show any indication on the Netflix queue that streaming is available.

This seems like a major loss of customer functionality to me, and one that should be manageable with the right technology design linking the two sites to provide the right information to customers to manage their subscription(s).

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Metaphysical goats

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You heard me right. Metaphysics and goats. In one stunning film.

Le Quattro Volte is a film that attempts to visually depict Pythagoras’s theory that the human soul moves from human to animal to vegetable and finally to mineral.  This movie is deeply moving, stunning and, while an Italian film, neither requires nor allows subtitles, since there are virtually no human vocalizations in the movie other than murmurs.

I have not been so spellbound by a film in a long, long time.

Here is the trailer, but ignore the narration and remember the visuals alone drive the power of this film. Watch in HD full screen and kill the ads.

Film critic A. O. Scott, of the New York Times, summarizes the emotional impact of this unspoken, but not silent, film:

Mortality looms large among [director] Mr. Frammartino’s concerns, but there is nothing grim or dispiriting about this film, his second feature. On the contrary, “Le Quattro Volte” packs more life into 88 minutes than movies twice as long, patiently surveying the human and natural landscapes of a remote valley in the southern Italian region of Calabria…

You have never seen anything like this movie, even though what it shows you has been there all along.

For those who value ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, this film scores a 92% favorable rating.

We are all made of star stuff and we have been around more than once in various permutations. That is fact. But the portrayal in this movie of the reality of our tangible physicality, the permutation of our matter over time is stunning.

You must see this movie and, by happenstance and at least for the time being, it is available via Netflix streaming.

The 2001 defense

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Samsung has made an interesting filing in Apple’s suit against the company claiming that Samsung “slavishly copied” Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Samsung claims that {fictional} tablet-type computers shown in Stanley Kubrick‘s film “2001: A Space Odyssey” constitute “prior art” thereby nullifying Apple’s patents on their iOS devices.

Here is an image that Samsung filed as evidence. The two vertical rectangles on the desk are the “tablets.”

2001 a space odyssey SamsungAnd here is a clip from the film showing the same scene:

More info at Foss Patents.

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Why aren’t you watching Harry Potter?

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This weekend Sarah Palin’s new movie, The Undefeated, opened in 10 theaters across the country.  Connor Friedersdorf, of The Atlantic, attended the premier in heavily Republican South Orange County, California.

How many people showed up to watch? Three, including Friedersdorf, and the other two walked into the movie not knowing what it was and left after 20 minutes.

I hurried through the teenage hordes [lined up to see Harry Potter], bypassed a concession stand that sold 1,020 calories of soda for $5.25, and entered theater number 30, hoping I’d have ample time before the previews to talk to some people. But inside, the theater was empty. I sat there alone for 20 minutes, at which point an usher stuck his head in the door, gave me a quizzical smile, and said, “How come you’re not watching Harry Potter?” Then he left me by myself again, and without any good answer.

It isn’t strictly accurate to say that I sat through the whole movie alone. Just as the previews started, two young women walked in giggling together and took seats three rows behind me. Afraid that they’d ruined the only story I had at that point — What If Sarah Palin Starred in a Movie and No One Showed Up? — I hoped they’d at least oblige me with an interview, and so they did.

Jamie Watkins, 22, is a Missouri native, which qualifies her as a real American. She only recently moved to Southern California, and her little sister, Jessie, age 18, was visiting for the first time.

“So, um, what made you come out here tonight?”

“We’re going to Disneyland tomorrow,” Jamie said, “but she just got here, so we decided we should go out.”

“We looked online for the latest movie playing,” Jessie added. “But all the Harry Potters were sold out, and then we saw ‘The Undeafeated.’ We don’t even actually know what we’re seeing.”

“Well welcome to California,” I said. “You’re about to see a documentary about Sarah Palin.”

“Oh, really?” they said, and started giggling again.

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Blu-ray pick of the week

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I just watched Rango on Blu-ray, and I can safely say this is a film you (and your kids) really should see. The Blu-ray transfer is technically beautiful. And the animated expressions and movements of the characters are wonderful and believable. There are nods of affection to Chinatown, Star Wars, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other classics.

The New York Times review by A.O. Scott, with which I totally agree, sees the fun and worth of the film:

But the odd thing about “Rango” is that unlike so many of its peers, it is odd. In spite of a profile that should place it alongside “Megamind” and “Despicable Me” and the long list of other overblown, have-fun-or-else cartoons, this rambling, anarchic tale is gratifyingly fresh and eccentric. Much of the time you don’t quite know where it is going, which is high praise indeed given the slick predictability that governs most other entertainments of its kind.

***

But the craziness of the journey makes that familiar destination worth it. We first encounter Mr. Depp’s character, a domesticated lizard with a Hawaiian shirt and an active imagination, in the terrarium tank he shares with a broken doll torso and a wind-up plastic fish. This minimal world is a stage for him, and he struts about on it like a scaly provincial trouper, acting out dramatic scenarios and scenes from Shakespeare to dispel the boredom of benign captivity. The blank, abstract space this creature inhabits calls our attention to the fanciful nature of the movie itself, as it begins to conjure an antic, improbable world out of nothing.

And here is Roger Ebert’s take:

 

“Rango” is some kind of a miracle: An animated comedy for smart moviegoers, wonderfully made, great to look at, wickedly satirical, and (gasp!) filmed in glorious 2-D.

Here is a little taste of the wonderful animation and the effective expressions of the “actors.”

 

 

Or try this one. It is longer and it shows how the movie plays with every western movie stereotype in a very knowing, and funny, way.

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Analyze your Netflix usage

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Should you pay the increased ($16/month) Netflix fee for a combination 1 DVD/unlimited streaming plan? Here is a good way to check out whether it would be worth it for you, based on your historic Netflix usage. Note: When you get to the red-bordered image to approve access to your Netflix account, click the white space to the right of the”submit query” text.

Six strikes

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The major ISPs have agreed with media companies to implement a “six strikes” program. Under the agreement, when content companies report to an ISP that they believe an ISP customer is accessing illegal content, the ISPs will implement a series of notices intended to get the customer to stop. Ultimately, the customer could be terminated by the ISP if they cease the activity.

The problem with this approach is that it is based merely on claims made by private companies, with no judicial oversight whatsoever. In effect, the ISPs become cops for the media industry and the media industry has the unilateral power to block (or severely degrade) service for those accused.  Imagine if a private company could go to the phone company and accuse a customer of using his phone to commit a crime and demand that the phone company take action, including disconnecting the phone. Would we agree to that approach? Since when do private companies engage in law enforcement?

The Center for Democracy & Technology, along with Public Knowledge, said in a joint statement they were concerned about the accord. “We believe it would be wrong for any ISP to cut off subscribers, even temporarily, based on allegations that have not been tested in court,” the groups said.

Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, also had concerns. She added, in a telephone interview, that the EFF was “pretty disappointed that ISPs have agreed to serve as a propaganda agent for big media.”

If a media company believes that a person has illegally stolen their content, the law provides existing remedies.

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