noisewar internetlainen - games, politics, and sarcasm

Amazing stuff!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

I was shocked this week when, just days before my kid sister's graduation from UC Santa Cruz, I got a call from my mom. Our wedding photographer Peter, close friend and co-worker to my dad, had lost his wife. She was healthy and lively just a few months ago, even helping Peter take some pictures when he had clearly fatigued himself trying to capture every angle of our wedding. A month ago, she discovered she needed a liver transplant. In one week, she went from sick to terminal, a case of genetic acute hepatitis that has a incredibly fast onset, period of jaundice, nausea, liver failure, and ultimately high fatality.

So as we sat in a hallowed outdoor auditorium listening to graduating students and their professors meander on the meaning of life in the best tradition of the liberal institution, and meanwhile in LA at the very same time, Peter was at his wife's funeral. I could not help shaking off the feeling that from marriage to wedding to graduation to death to funeral, here before us was a strange, Gordian knot of happenstance. Appreciate it all as you can.

It's almost convenient that as Christina enters the work force with her newly minted art degree, another one exits. Life is convenient like that I guess, however inconvenient it is for us who live in it.

Requiescat in Pace... <to be continued>

Wow. Just... wow. This is the movie I was waiting to be waiting all year for. Today was the first time I've heard of the movie adaptation of Frank Miller's 300. The visuals in this are jaw-dropping. Lush, liquid sets with almost prop-like backdrops for backgrounds to frame some incredibly Grecian poses, epic character staging, and ultimately, still true to paper comic stylings, this is pure sickness. OK, sorry. The gush stops here.


EDIT: The HD trailers here!

This is simply the most brilliant piece since that Michael Jackson vs. Mario thing.

For a pre-finals field trip, I took a couple of my students to catch a matinee of Superman Returns. Verdict? It's a Brian Singer film; well-written story, excellent cast, beautiful direction, but, well, the action was about as exciting as betting on whether or not gnats can stop trucks. Superman is invincible. Plausible action sequences are entirely dependent on whether or not the citizens of Metropolis survive, since we know Supes will just be a little dusty none-for-worse after demolishing the biggest, flaminingest threat.


SPOILERS ALERT!!!

No, what made the movie interesting for me was the contrast between a godly Superman and the mortal Batman. Brian Singer weaves a plethora of Christian themes into the film, beginning with the quotation that the Father is the Son, and the Son the Father. A myriad of shots of Supes in space show him going from a Christlike pose to an almost fetal nativity pose, capturing the transition of Clark Kent the mortal-ish into the son of Jor-El, an alien of godlike power. At one point, Superman is stabbed through the lower ribcage by a spearhead of Kryptonite, and is at the mercy of a luciferously-garbed Lex Luthor who draws inspiration from the Roman Empire's technological superiority. Later, his resurrection is conceived only when his son kisses his forehead, bringing the cycle to close.

Compare that to Batman Begins, where Bruce Wayne is a contemporary Adam who gains both enemies and the power to defeat his enemies through the double-edged pursuit of knowledge. Where Supes is "born" in the movie to a sole mother (with a visage outside the hospital highly reminiscent of Mary Magdalene's face at the end of Passion of Christ), having only a ghostly message for his real father, Batman is born into a paradisical fortune of Eden, which he leaves to face daily danger. Superman is divine, Batman is fallen.

But there is another thread that I realized while watching the movie. I realized why people, especially Americans, love the Superman mythology. Forget the Christian themes in this (and only this) movie. Superman is an immigrant who has fallen in love with the American way, and lends his extraordinary powers to keep that patriotic flame alive. He wears our colors, but as Bill points out in Kill Bill, unlike all other superheroes, that isn't his alter ego. That *is* him. Americans want to believe our Clark Kent exteriors are alter egos, and our origins are where are true powers lie, and that people will love us for them. Superman is and is reinforcing the American spirit simultaneously. Superman is not escapism, he is the real deal.

So was the movie any good? Well despite boring art direction and a total cop-out where the last fight happens not in Metropolis but some FX-lite island, it wasn't bad, I mean technically it was executed flawlessly. The movie itself was very much emulating the Man of Steel- far too perfect, far too predictable. It's a movie we'll admire, but trust me, in the end, mortality is much more interesting. Batman will always better drama, so long as he isn't impervious to bullets.

That is what I think has fascinated the West so much with Pac-man. It is the purest metaphor for conflict, duality, and preseverance-'til-victory that one can interact with. It is Homer's Odyssey told in the lifespan of a quarter. To that end, I think on an artistic level, this remake of Pac-man into a manifestation of Mondrian's jazz obsession fails to "get" Pac-man on the level that this hilarious clip of idiots running through libraries does.


Now just imagine if you could play Pac-man using the new Tom Tom feature where you can follow your buddies around!