Mssv

Just watched Phone Booth tonight. Overall, an mildly entertaining movie that is somewhat predictable, but with an interesting use of sets (namely, the phone booth) and a compelling dynamic between the caller and the ‘hero’. Could’ve been much better though; I believe that the original screenplay was far edgier and, unsurprisingly, less ‘Hollywood’.

This article about the science of the Matrix (from /.) is interesting enough from a fan-fiction ‘well, it could work!’ perspective, but it is way off on some of the hard issues, namely the whole ‘quantum mechanics microtubules’ nonsense. It might be convenient to explain away consciousness because of magical quantum ‘fairy dust’ interactions, but [...]

Spirited Away Captures Oscar - perhaps now this means that it will enjoy a proper release in the US and UK instead of the crippled (and non-existant, in the case of the latter) release given to it by Disney. It continues to baffle Miyazaki fans how Disney, after buying up the distribution rights to all [...]

While reading Roger Ebert’s review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, I came across this wonderful paragraph that I had to share:
“It’s at about this point that the script conferences must have really taken off. See if you can follow this: The Enterprise crew determines that the probe is zeroing in on Earth, and [...]

Coming Attractions has just been ruined by Cinescape - they say that ‘nothing will change’, but have a look at their new home and try and extract any kind of news from that page.

While watching my Back to the Future DVD for the umpteenth time, I decided to go and check out the original theatrical trailer. Since the film first opened in 1985, the trailer was suitably cringeworthy, what with all the flashing LEDs, arrays of ‘futuristic’ buttons, shots of the Delorean’s profile and the silly dialogue:
V/O: How [...]

I recently bought the Back To The Future trilogy DVD set from eBay - it arrived in a slightly bizarre piece of packaging which made me suspect it was pirated, but it turns out that it’s the official Australian version of the DVD set (Region 2 and 4 compatible). Managed to save a few pounds [...]

Doug Chiang Studio - home of the Robota art/book/film story. There’s an extremely well done teaser video (Teaser II) for the project there.

A couple of nights ago, I was happily showing a friends - a fellow space buff - my favourite moment in cinematic history. It was the heartbreakingly beautiful docking sequence set to the Blue Danube in 2001. An elegent spaceplane languidly waltzes towards a spinning Space Station which is still to this day the most [...]

Is this Lord of the Rings Winamp Skin really by New Line Cinema? It certainly looks like it, and if so, it’s quite a clever piece of work. It’s had almost half a million downloads so far, and for the price of however long it took an artist to design it, it’s generated an incredible [...]