eveninghawk’s links

Sleep Dealer is going to be an interesting flick which i heard about thanks to the folks over at io9.  The plot synopsis sounds awesome, in my estimation.  Helps that the director is a Hampshire alum.

This kinda cracks me up… just a little background… you can guess what the ad is going to be about ahead of time because the term for condom in polite company is “small umbrella.”

Really, you want to see a Chinese condom ad.

Youtube has a 1960s film on the red China threat.  I find the characterizations used so interesting because while some of the history facts are true, the way it’s put together is so sinister.

This video is pretty darned amazing and makes me think that hula hoops need to be part of a workout plan.

I rented Unleashed, and managed to set aside some time to watch it this week. Someone recommended it to me a year ago, and I’ve been a little slow on the uptake in terms of watching.

The movie related to a lot of things I’ve been thinking about in terms of being smart and sensitive, and about learning in general. I will warn you that the movie is violent, and if you’re not up for violence in your flicks, then you shouldn’t watch it.

However, if you’re willing to allow that, then it’s a great film. It took me a while to realize that many of the folks involved also made The Professional, a long-standing favorite film of mine, so it’s no wonder that I liked this one so much.

It’s interesting to think of what kinds of controls we put on ourselves in order to interact well with the rest of the world, and also to think if other folks have some kinds of controls on us. I’d like to think the answer is “none” for the latter, but I’m not so sure.

In terms of fighting style - which is something we come to treasure in any Jet Li movie, right? - the choreography is interesting, as they tried to conjure up what a person would fight like if they acted more like a dog than a human being. I was really impressed that Jet Li chose to do a film like this, and it’s gritty and fascinating, and in the end I think his character transforms from being a man degraded to becoming a man empowered and sensitive. That made me really happy because one of the things that has consistently disappointed me with other Hollywood martial arts flicks is that I feel like the main character is dehumanized. Here we pointedly start of with a dehumanized character who takes back his humanity.

any graduate student learns the skills of finding free food.  Heck, this is a skill most undergrads also manage to hone.

Of course, this is a skill we don’t think of much outside of the poor student sector, but one worth considering, because an awful lot of perfectly good food gets thrown away, either from fast food joints, bakeries, restaurants, and supermarkets.  Think about how much food there is out there, if not for the social taboo of finding it in dumpsters. Better than think about it, watch the Current TV piece about it.

Two items today struck me as particularly noteworthy.  First off, treehugger has a great post on a couple of Al Gore videos, talking about making An Inconvenient Truth, and how to effectively get a message on climate change out and about in the public’s eye.

Oh, I hear Leonardo DiCaprio was on Oprah this week, and he talked about climate change as well.  If you’re interested in his short online films on the topic, you can find those at  leonardodicaprio.org.

The second item of interest to me is an article about a house made using materials leftover from Boston’s Big Dig.  The recently completed 4,300-square-foot home in Lexington, Massachusetts incorporates 600,000 pounds of recycled materials.

Sometimes it really is worth it to blow some time playing some pretty games. This morning I was pointed to Quest for the Rest, which is beautiful and well worth checking out. It actually reminds me of a lot of stuff that Ben likes to do.

It also brought up memories of a link Scott sent me back in the days when I was in Shanghai, Orisinal, which has moved from the address i remembered. Thankfully I was able to track it down, as it’s a really fun site with pretty games that are… cute and extremely well built.

Hot, sexy, violent, and inappropriate. I find these are qualities I like in a comic, though often it doesn’t transcend to screen. While I adore Tank Girl and what it was trying to achieve, it didn’t get there and it sold the comic short.

Not quite so for Sin City. I feel like they worked really hard to get into the grittyness of the comic while staying away from trite butt-kicking girls that seem to be all over the place these days.

I know most of those near and dear to me are not so hot on violence on-screen, but I really liked this. The cinematography was a lot of fun as was the color. The title sequence was well done, immersed in the film rather than a passing piece of script, and the immersion for those unfamiliar with the comic seemed well done. Let’s be clear, this is not one of my top comic reads of all time, but I think it’s definitely worth familiarizing oneself with if there’s an interest in comics.

As for the film… there were lots of people in the film that I really liked, and most importantly I think the film might open doors for some folks to the not-your-Sunday-morning-funnies comics.

Apparently the folks behind Miramax have left Disney, though the Miramax name and library remain with Disney. Does this mean we’ll have a new creative label pop up? Does this mean Disney will lose all semblance of an investment that has an “edge”?