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The screening began with Tim League -- venerable genre film enthusiast, owner of the Alamo
Drafthouse, and programmer of the SX Fantastic showcase in which Serbian Film was playing --
telling me and the rest of the audience to get the hell out. Either that, or he didn't want to hear
any whining after Serbian Film kicked our asses, heretofore thought inured to on-screen
gore and depravity after years of worshipping at the altar of the horror movie. This was not idle
talk. Ninety-six minutes later, I was among a group of a half-dozen battle-hardened critics and
writers who, when asked for their impressions of what they had just seen, found themselves unable
to string together a coherent sentence. Consensus: Serbian Film was, by a long shot, the
most disturbing thing we had ever seen.
Let me put my cards on the table: this movie depicts some acts that I think should not be depicted.
I don't mean legally: as a free speech absolutist, I would never advocate for anything being
banned, no matter how awful, so long as no one is actually hurt. But I do think -- or am starting
to think -- that filmmakers have a moral obligation not to show certain things unless they are
prepared to seriously grapple with their real-world consequences. Like Michael Haneke's Funny
Games, Serbian Film is interested not in the substance of the images it puts on
the screen, but in the images themselves: their power and their effect on us. This is perfectly
legitimate, but in this particular case a line has been crossed. If saying that is moralistic and
unprogressive, so be it.
Whenever I hear that Jennifer Aniston will be appearing on a talk show to
promote an upcoming movie, I know that two things will most definitely happen. One is that the
talk show host will start the interview with “So, how are you doing? You good?” as if
she’s still devastated that Brad Pitt is shacking up with
Angelina Jolie. And the second thing, and more importantly, is that she’ll
show off her killer legs and make everyone ask themselves “Why the hell did Brad Pitt leave
that!?”.
So, here she is on Live with Regis and Kelly, and the Late Show with
David Letterman, promoting her upcoming movie The Bounty Hunter, and
looking drop dead sexy while showing off said killer pair of legs. Enjoy the screen caps, and
check out the videos to drool over everything in motion. Cheers.
How much is a music distribution company worth these days? The Orchard, one of the largest independent music distributors,
is going private in a deal valuing the company at about $13 million.
Its largest shareholder, private equity firm Dimensional Associates, is buying the 58 percent of
shares it does not already own.
Dimensional is paying
$2.05 a share, which is more than a 20 percent premium over yesterday’s closing price.
With 6.228 million shares outstanding, that values the business at $12.8
million—not a hell of a lot, considering that is less than one quarter’s
revenues.
The Orchard has yet to file an annual report for last year, but for the
first nine months of 2009, it was lost $17.5 million on revenues of $45.5 million.
The Orchard specializes in digital distribution. The fact that it cannot make any money is yet
another nail in the coffin of the music industry. Perhaps under private ownership, it can
transition to a different business model.
There’s a disturbing trend in music technology. Although home studios are
rising, music is generally still recorded in specially designed environments and at high
fidelity. Then for distribution, we compress the hell out of each track and do all sorts of
terrible MP3-related things to them. And now, in order to repair the damage, we’re seeing a
rise in after-market
software designed to make the bad sound good. The Digital
Power Station is one such plug-in, and just for you guys, we took it for a test run.
This plug-in is for Mac OS and iTunes only. There are different algorithms based on your input
and output medium. The input is pretty limited since you can only use this thing with iTunes, but
apparently the transients in music and movies are that drastically different. The real
differences come out in the output profiles. Pick whether you’re using your
computer’s built-in speakers, externals, or listening on headphones.
There are various output presets based on your hardware. All the different Mac laptop and desktop
models are available, along with various “universal” settings for other brands of
speakers and headphones. I found that this plug-in only really shines when you’re using
either the built-in speakers, or low-quality peripherals. When listening on my Sony MDR-7506s, I
didn’t notice any change from the enhancer.
I could see this being a piece of pre-installed software, but I would be hard pressed to drop $30
on it. Especially for only one license. They’ve got a free trial available, so you guys can
go listen for yourself. They’ve even got endorsements from at least three members of
Boston. Or you could encode your audio into a decent file format. Yeah, do that.
Every few months or so we hear about proposals in Canada to extend Canada's blank media tax
(they prefer "levy") to MP3 players, such as iPods. The Canadian Private Copying Collective has
tried to do this multiple times and had the courts strike it down multiple times. These levies make little sense.
They massively increase the price of certain products (studies have seen 90% of the cost of blank
CDs going to the levy) and, despite claims to the contrary, the money collected really doesn't help many musicians. Hell,
even the recording industry isn't a huge fan of the idea, because it's afraid such a levy will get
people thinking that file sharing any music is now "legal."
So, it's a bit of a surprise to see that Canadian Member of Parliament, Charlie Angus, who's
generally considered one of the sharper folks on copyright issues, is now putting forth legislation for a Canadian "you must be a criminal" tax on MP3
players. The article suggests that it won't get very far, and Angus doesn't seem to be
explaining why he's putting this forward, but it is odd. The idea of such a tax is incredibly unpopular with
Canadians, and you would think that Angus, of all people, would recognize that.
What would you do if you
found out that you had an extremely contagious disease that required you to remain in quarantine
for the several months? If you’re like most people, you would probably cry and cry and
cry… and then curl up in the corner and commence eating your hair.
But if you were Christiaan Van Vuuren (a.k.a. The Fully Sick Rapper), you would make a series of
kick-ass viral rap videos that would launch you into the firmament of Internet stardom.
If you’re an avid fan of the viral video space, you’ve probably seen Van
Vuuren’s vids by now — among them a trio of parody rap songs that deal with being
stuck in quarantine after catching a bad case of Tuberculosis.
The concept might sound rather after-school-special-esque — or, frankly, lame — to
the uninitiated, but Van Vuuren’s amateur videos are a hell of a lot more entertaining than
a lot of the schlock that professional comedians churn out. Why? Because they’re coming
from a very real place.
After seeing Van Vuuren’s raps popping up all over the Internet, Mashable sat down for an
interview (via Skype) with the 27-year-old Aussie, direct from his hospital room in Sydney.
(We’ve embedded the video portion below for those who aren’t fans of big blocks of
text.)
Getting Down with the Sickness
Up until December of this past year, Christiaan Van Vuuren had a proper nine-to-five job in media
sales that required him to pull a suit jacket over his tattooed arms and have lunches with
clients and the like.
During one of these lunches, however, Van Vuuren started coughing up blood. Soon after, he found
himself in the hospital, where the doctor told him that he had a hole in his lung, which Van
Vuuren describes as roughly the size of an Aussie 50 cent coin. The diagnosis? Tuberculosis
— a disease he likely contracted four years ago during time spent in South Africa. The
affliction lay dormant until a recent trip to South America.
Van Vuuren was admitted to the hospital at the start of December, and at the time he thought he
would only be there for roughly two weeks. Still, the seclusion took its toll. “I was
itching to get out, banging on the walls,” he says. “That was when I made that first
rap song, ‘I’m Not Sick, But I’m Sick Sick.’”
He wrote the rap and recorded it using Garage Band. “At the start, it was just to make
mates laugh,” he explains, but after friends convinced him to make a video for the song and
upload it to YouTube, a local radio
station covered the story, as well as Australian morning program Today. At that point, the video had around 10,000 hits. “I was a bit
embarrassed that that many people had seen me without my shirt on and in the shower,” Van
Vuuren says.
Going Viral
Van Vuuren was let out of the hospital around the first of the year, but after his condition
worsened, he found himself back in quarantine, where he made his second video, “Life in
Quarantine.” This time, the video spread to the States, where it was picked up by sites
like College Humor. Currently, it has garnered more than a quarter of a million hits in less than
a month.
The popularity of the video came as a shock to the former punk rocker (Van Vuuren has a musical
background, but he admits that he hasn’t messed around with instruments in any real
capacity for five years.) He’d never even used Garage Band or iMovie before.
“It’s unreal, it’s giving me something to do. I feel like I’ve got a
nine-to-five job now,” he says.
And that feeling of purpose had been a boon to the media man-turned-rapper. “I’ve
taken my focus off of when I’m going to get out of here and when I’m going to be
healthy,” he explains. “I try to apply [my energy] more to what I can do while
I’m in here to have not wasted the time. I think the worst thing would be — and I
think it’s made me feel the worst when I’ve been in here — is the whole world
will keep on spinning out there and and I’m here in this room doing nothing.”
One look at Van Vuuren’s YouTube channel shows that he’s done a lot more than wallow: there’s his
parody raps as well as a couple of other joke songs about his ukulele
and hopeless crush on Today host Leila
McKinnon, as well as his own take on MTV’s Cribs and a sketch about a hospital-bound Storm
Trooper. Van Vuuren also plans to start making webisodes about his time in quarantine.
Getting Social
In addition to being a video-editing virgin, Van Vuuren also says he’s “as green as
they come” when it comes to social media. “In the industry that I work in, in media,
I’ve gone to these courses before where they’re talking about the power of social
media,” he recalls. “And they’re like, ‘All right, let me demonstrate
something: Who of you hasn’t got a Facebook?’ And I look around realize I’m the
only person in the whole room of about 140 people who has their arm up.”
That all changed after coming down with TB. Now, Van Vuuren has a Facebook page with close to 6,000 fans, as well as a newly launched Twitter account with a burgeoning list
of followers.
And, surprisingly, the trolls seem to be keeping their distance. “I don’t know
whether everyone’s just like, ‘Oh, it’s so cute that he did that and he’s
sick and he’s in a hospital, let’s watch that!’ And then as soon as I’m
not sick anymore people are going to go, ‘Uhhh, you weren’t really that
funny,’” Van Vuuren says with a laugh.
Either way, he thrives off of the support this community gives him, members of which send
photoshopped images of the viral star in various exotic locals and photos of themselves
replicating moments from his videos. Van Vuuren also gets more than his share of marriage
proposals from fawning female fans.
“I’m sure that’s what God helped us make the Internet for or why the Internet
is here,” Van Vuuren says (referring to his supporting fans, not the marriage proposals
— per se). “It’s for things like that. Because when you’re so lonely and
in such a place on your own, you can be around so many people or be supported by so many
people.”
It only took a three-and-a-half-year wait for it to come out, but we finally have more footage of
Limbo, Playdead's dream-like black and white platformer releasing to Xbox Live Arcade
some time this summer. The game follows a boy searching for his sister in Limbo, or "on the edge
of hell."
For those of you that missed the show, the Independent Games Festival
Awards selected Limbo as the winner in two categories, Excellence in Visual Art and
Technical Excellence. Playdead showed off this first area of the game on the IGF showfloor at the
Game Developers Conference last week.
The concept is this - I tell you things that I'd have done in certain comics!!
But don't worry, I'm not talking about simple 20/20 hindsight things like pick a famous bad
storyline and just say, "I wouldn't have done that."
No, I mean more like tweaks and nudges, stuff like that.
You can check out past
years' I'ds to see what I'm talking about, or just read on (I've decided to consolidate them
all into one big post this year to better center the discussion)!
I'd Have Silver Surfer Be Out on His Own Again
To put it simply, if Jack Kirby and Stan Lee think a character set-up is a good one, it's
probably worth following their general lead.
They thought it was a great idea to have Silver Surfer be spurned by his former master, Galactus,
and travel the world experiencing new things every day. You can expand that from the Earth to the
universe and still get the same basic feel of their plans for the character, but making him go
back to being Galactus' herald?
I don't think it works - he's too interesting of a character to have him stuck as Galactus'
herald again.
Free the Surfer!
I'd Have Kept a Certain Character Killed in Cry For Justice Alive.
Spoilers for Cry For Justice!!!!
Okay, like Cry for Justice or hate it, the death of Lian Harper is pretty necessary to the plot
of Cry for Justice. It doesn't mean that it was well-told or a GOOD plot or anything like that,
but Green Arrow's granddaughter pretty much HAD to die (or someone of equivalent importance to
him, like Speedy or Dinah or Hal) to get the reaction from Green Arrow that James Robinson wanted
in the series. So I don't think it is fair for me (or anyone else) to say "I'd have kept Lian
Harper alive," because that's not a tweak or a nudge - it would drastically change the story.
However, having one of the very few gay superheroes (and one of the coolest ones, at
that) killed off IN A FLASHBACK did not seem to be a particularly important plot point, and the
same gag (showing the big bad guy using the hero's hide as a rug) could have been achieved
through any number of truly unremarkable characters (or even a new character), so I'd have kept
Tasmanian Devil alive.
I'd Make the Red Hulk be Thunderbolt Ross
I know that Ross was sort of the "obvious" choice for the alter-ego of the Red Hulk, but just
because it's the obvious choice doesn't mean that it is a BAD choice!
Having Ross turn into the very thing that he's been trying to chase down for years, and then
finding out that he LIKED it?
That's a great twist on the old Ross/Banner dynamic, particularly for a character like Ross who
wasn't exactly getting a lot of screen time anyways.
I find it hard to believe that the Red Hulk's actual identity will be cooler than Ross (maybe
somehow it IS Ross! But it's most likely going to be Clay Quartermain).
I'd Have the Lead of Haunt Have a Different Job When the Series Began.
The main character of Haunt (about a guy who merges with the ghost of his dead brother to form a
super powered being) was a priest when the series began. For, like, no reason that I can see so
far (and he no longer IS a priest anymore). It's a distracting plot point in that it really
doesn't seem to have a purpose, we never really get to see any sort of guilt (or hell, even any
real response from other characters) over his role as a priest mixing with his several vices of
his, and now he's no longer a priest - so what was the point? It was basically worth one fairly
cheap gag in #1 (look, he went to a hooker but he's a priest!!) then never really used again -
I'd have just dropped that aspect of the character period.
I'd Bring the X-Men Down to a Consistent, Moderately-sized Team.
I really think that, while the whole "Every mutant in the same area" concept is an interesting
one in general, when it comes to a regular title it is better to have a consistent main cast of
characters. There were a lot of characters in Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, but he had a main
cast, and it was relatively small.
Joss Whedon continued in this vein, and Warren Ellis after him.
But I think based on a good idea (at the time) of "Why shouldn't Uncanny X-Men get to use cool
characters like Cyclops and Emma Frost TOO?," we got this gigantic cast of X-Men, and I think the
book works best with a small, consistent, moderately-sized team.
It can even use the same characters who are in Astonishing if you'd like to keep using Cyclops
and Emma Frost and Wolverine, just get a regular team!
I'd Have Brian K. Vaughan Write Another Comic!
Come on, Brian, we're dying here! You're too awesome not to write any new comics!
I'd Make the Masters of Evil a Major Avengers Foe Again
So it's been, what, twenty years since the Avengers fought the Masters of Evil in the pages of
the Avengers?
Doesn't that just sound WRONG to you? They used to fight the Masters of Evil a lot! Like, a dozen
times in the first twenty years of the Avengers, but just the one time in the twenty years since,
and that time wasn't even in their own title, but rather in the early issues of the Thunderbolts
when the Masters were passing themselves off as heroes.
I guess The Hood's league of super-villains is BASICALLY the Masters of Evil, but I'd prefer the
"real" thing.
I'd Have Kept One Couple Apart at the End of Y the Last Man
Spoilers for the end of Y the Last Man!
I really didn't like that Hero and Beth got together at the end of Y the Last Man. It seemed way
too "cutesy" in a sort of "hey, guess what, everyone you knew ended up with everyone else you
knew!" way. I'm glad Yorick didn't end up with Beth, and I guess Vaughan figured it would save
space in the final issue by having the two characters together (so he wouldn't have to do two
separate "wrap up" visits), but it really took me out of the moment to see how two basically
random characters (who both happened to be major cast members of the title) end up together at
the end.
I'd Have Roger Stern and John Byrne do Their Red Skull Three-Parter as a Prestige Format
Series
Whether an extra-long one-shot (or hell, a three-issue mini-series), I'd bring Roger Stern and
John Byrne back to finish the story that they were prepared to do before they left Captain
America almost thirty years ago.
They were willing to do it in the past, so it's up to Marvel (well, okay, I guess it's also up to
Byrne to work for Marvel again, which might not be a possibility)! This needs to happen!
I'd Give Kieron Gillen SOME Major Book to Write
I get that the thought of having Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker handling the ongoing titles of the
Big Three (two for Fraction one for Brubaker) is too cool of an option to pass up, so I don't
blame Marvel for not letting Gillen write Thor regularly, but he's surely shown that he's not
just capable of writing a major character, but that he would THRIVE on such a title - so someone
really ought to find a major book he could write! If not at Marvel, maybe DC?
I'd Have Not Killed Stealth
I really don't understand the concept behind killing off Stealth in REBELS, especially
off-panel!! Her relationship with Vril Dox was fascinating - there had to be a better way to set
up an adversarial position between Vril and Querl than to kill off Stealth (NOTE: If she returns
to life due to Blackest Night, then, well, my apologies for even bringing this up as a
complaint).
I'd Reveal That the Time Displaced Alpha Flight Died in The New Avengers' Collective
Storyline
Or that the Time Displaced Alpha Flight (from Scott Lobdell's Alpha Flight run) are still alive -
either or.
In either event, I'd use the gaping loophole Lobdell left for everyone at the end of that series
and bring back Alpha Flight.
You don't even have to use them right away - just establish that they're alive out there and if
someone EVENTUALLY wants to use them, have the option be there.
Open the door, basically.
I'd Bring Wesley Back Into the Pages of Angel
Angel spoilers ahead!
While Wesley did, indeed, die in the last episode of Angel, Joss Whedon made a point of saying
that, had the show been renewed for Season 6, Wesley would be back, so now that Angel continues
as a comic book, I don't see the point in keeping Wesley out of the comic. He was a strong part
of the After the Fall storyline, and he'd be a great addition to the current cast (which,
otherwise, IS a pretty interesting cast, a nice mix of established characters and characters
introduced in the comic).
I'd Have Wally West's Parents Show Up Once in Awhile
While I can understand why people would not be interested in using some of Bill Loebs' Flash
supporting cast like Chunk (although I like him a lot), I really don't understand why the fact
that Wally's parents are both alive is not more of a plot point in any Flash comic. I mean,
Wally's dad hasn't appeared in a comic in over ten years! Basically, since Bill Loebs last wrote
a Flash (or Flash-related) comic, Wally's parents have been no-shows.
I think that's a shame - Bill Loebs did strong work with Wally's mother, Mary, and his father,
Rudolph, and I'd like to see them show up once in awhile.
I'd Give Nick Fury and His Old SHIELD Allies Their Own Book
I LOVE the parts of Secret Warriors spotlighting Nick Fury, Ex-Agent of SHIELD.
I don't MIND the third-generation superhero characters, but I don't like them as much in a book
that would be near-perfect if it was just Nick Fury, Ex-Agent of SHIELD.
So, well, I suppose I'd like a Nick Fury, Ex-Agent of SHIELD comic, basically.
Those are MY I'ds for this year - now share yours, too!
Amanda Seyfried is quickly rocketting to the top of the list of Hollywood's sexiest ladies, and
this new photoshoot from Esquire magazine just gave her a turbo boost. As if we weren't already
waiting with baited breath for her...
There are two things I hate about a job like this: Carrie, and the viewer-at-home.
That’s not true. There are dozens of things I hate: network executives,
directors, producers, footage editors with their nasally little ‘we could have used a
little better resolution here. ” I hate pretty much everyone involved in a
documentary, but it’s the viewer-at-home who matters. Once that viewer decides
they don’t like Carrie, don’t like fish, or don’t like learning, all of us are
out of a job.
“There’s the entrance!” Carrie squeals. If nothing else, she has
enthusiasm.
It’s a low-budget gig. Unlike Carrie up ahead, who was lucky enough to be
female, skinny, blond, and (of lesser importance) a marine biologist, Tommy-crap-for-lighting and
Joe-the-assistant-camera-guy (that’s me) actually have to lug junk into these
tunnels. The sound guy and lead cameraman are resting cozy on the boat, practically
retired.
“Over here,” she calls, swimming smoothly over a long-still turnstile and into the
submerged station lobby. I bring the cameras around an ancient ticket machine but
find nothing more than a ragged hole, smaller than a kid’s fist. “There
are thousands of these,” Carrie continues, looking at my headcam. Who the hell
wears makeup underwater? “Even though their slowed metabolism gives them
twenty or thirty minutes underwater, the skeletal structure hasn’t changed
much. If it weren’t for these nests, they’d make easy dinner for
anything down here. A single Long Island Crocodile could take out a whole school in
seconds.
Great. Crocodiles. I really ought to read a pamphlet or two about this
junk before strapping on the cam and jumping overboard.
My comm beeps and the cameraman patches in, private to me and Tommy. “Can we
get a shot of these rats?”
“Carrie, they want rats,” I say, switching frequencies.
“We’re working overtime here,” he says. I hear the hiss of a
bottle opening.
On the main channel, Carrie’s still rambling science. “Marine biologists
continue their search for the secrets of the tunnel rat,” she says.Â
“Despite intensive study, their rapid evolution remains a mystery, and we can only hope
that in decades to come-”
“Joe, can you get a better shot of that hole?” Tommy comms.
Carrie, caught up in describing the rats’ miraculously pathetic life, doesn’t notice
as I clickswitch my handcam to fisheye without turning my helmet camera from her face.
And then, Tommy delivers a kick to the ticket machine with so much force that I have no idea how
he pulled it off with flippers.
They crawl and swim, dozens, maybe hundreds, not just from the hole but from the ticket slot as
well, from unseen gaps behind and beneath the machine. An emptying hive of nearly
hairless grey and pink rodents, tails swishing and feet scrabbling for purchase as a stream of
bubbles trail upward from a corner.
“That’s what we need!” open-comms the cameraman. “We can
edit out that kick, right?”
Only the glow of Tommy’s sidelight lets me see Carrie shake her head.Â
“You can’t just empty a whole colony like that!” she says, voice
weak. “Do you have any idea how territorial–”
“Look, Carr, we’re making a documentary here,” comes a new voice, the assistant
director. Asshole must have been monitoring everything.
“They’ll only invade another colony, and–”
“Let the marine biologists worry about that junk, okay? All of you, back to
the boat, and–”
“I am a marine biologist.”
“Back to the boat. Now.”
It’s a month until filming starts on Carrie’s next Learning Channel adventure, and
hopefully, it’ll be somewhere warm.
Personally, I’m not sure if I’m all that attracted to this girl in face, but on the
other hand I’m loving that cute bod of hers! Perhaps it’s because I watch too much
porn, but that beautiful, oiled-up ass is ideal and looking yummy as hell. And her yumminess
doesn’t stop there! She has some cute, tiny titties and a delectable, little snatch to
boot. As with a lot of women, the more clothes she looses the better she’s looking. A great
quality in my opinion.
Andre submitted these pics of his cute ex girlfriend nude and glistening in the bedroom. He
didn’t have a whole bunch to say about her, but he did warn not to be fooled by her
innocent looks. He said she has a hunger for the meat pipe like no other girl he’s ever
known. Needless to say, he was never left unsatisfied while they were dating. Although Andre
didn’t go into any details, it also sound like maybe there were a few others that were also
satisfied by her during their courtship? Just speculating, of course. Thanks for sharing, Andre!
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There’s a disturbing trend in music technology. Although home studios are
rising, music is generally still recorded in specially designed environments and at high
fidelity. Then for distribution, we compress the hell out of each track and do all sorts of
terrible MP3-related things to them. And now, in order to repair the damage, we’re seeing a
rise in 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
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