Check out the free movie downloads from "Pubic Domain Torrents":
The cult classic A Boy and His Dog (from Harlan Ellison's novella) is there.
Along with some Buster Keaton! (There's also a bunch of Charlie Chaplin! And the much maligned Fatty Arbuckle!)
Dario Argento's brooding horror classic Deep Red.
Here's a dull little Psycho rip-off that was advertised as being TOO SHOCKING to be rated by the MPAA: Funeral Home. It's straight PG.
If you're Ed Wood, how do you follow up your autobiographical classic, Glen or Glenda? With a little Jail Bait!
I used to tell people about this movie and they accused me of being a liar: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter.
Though Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck's movie Dead People was butchered, it still contains some of the most persistently spooky imagery in the horror canon. I've always felt that the Jennifer Lopez flick The Cell was influenced by this.
The best version of Dracula.
Thornton Wilder's Our Town with William Holden.
Frank Sinatra in Suddenly.
Lots of MST3K fodder, cartoons, serials, early Hitch and Roger Corman (including the classics Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors)!
(via Retromedia Forum)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Me: I thought "Apocalypse" was pretty good for a "Resident Evil" movie.
The Boy: Yeah. A bit silly though. Wouldn't corporations be the best chance of survival in a zombie-ridden world?
Me: Well, them and hot chicks running around in shorty-shorts.
The Boy: True.
Me: Which, if you can accept the premise that fighting zombies is best done in skimpy clothing, it's all downhill from there, silliness-wise.
EDIT: This should've been RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION. I couldn't stay awake through Apocalypse, shorty-shorts or no.
The Boy: Yeah. A bit silly though. Wouldn't corporations be the best chance of survival in a zombie-ridden world?
Me: Well, them and hot chicks running around in shorty-shorts.
The Boy: True.
Me: Which, if you can accept the premise that fighting zombies is best done in skimpy clothing, it's all downhill from there, silliness-wise.
EDIT: This should've been RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION. I couldn't stay awake through Apocalypse, shorty-shorts or no.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
A Paean To Sexual Harrassment: Charlie Wilson's War
Just got back from Charlie Wilson's War. (And hang tight, there are about eight movies out on my "to see" list--after weeks of scratching to find one worth watching.)
I had read Extreme Mortman's review (via Instapundit) and figured I could risk this politically themed movie, as the subject--America's contribution to the Soviet-Afghanistan war--was of some interest. (EDIT: Actually Karl's review at Protein Wisdom, which looks at some of the more political reactions, was probably more influential.)
What I was immediately struck by was that the movie positively glorified what we now call "sexual harassment". Wilson is introduced to us--after the left end of a bookend scene with a medal ceremony assuring us that the Cold War never would have been won without him--at an '80s strippers 'n' coke party and he staffs his office with gorgeous chicks. Much of the negotiation the Congressmen does involves having sex with women. These things are obliquely referred to however, since the actual act of--well, the actual acts might take some of the sheen off of even Tom Hanks (last seen lending his credibility to The Simpson's Movie's dubious US government).
This part of the movie is fun. Hanks gets to pour on some of the southern charm he marvelously overplayed in the Coen brothers' Ladykillers. The movie picks up real speed when Philip Seymour Hoffman shows up as an offbeat CIA agent, and is humming along nicely when Julia Roberts does her turn as the aging Texan ex-beauty queen who pressures the Congressmen into acting to giving the Afghans armaments. (And unlike the Mortman, I had no trouble hearing either Hanks or Philip Seymour Hoffman, but it'll probably be inaudible in the TV mix.)
For a based-on-a-true-story, this is a rather odd film. The movie wisely avoids partisan politics for the most part, concentrating on the dysfunction of the process--with only a few scenes that (fairly, I'd say) show how the idiosyncrasies of a particular party. For example, Dems are shown backing the aid to Afghanistan for the "tough" street cred. (The CIA takes another huge black eye, though, both for missing the invasion and not backing the resistance.)
It seems, though, that this was partly accomplished by ignoring huge chunks of history. Reagan was referred to once in the movie--and only as "a Republican President". Democrats and media types who were (and still are) sympathetic to communism are completely ignored. The Afghanis themselves are practically props in the acts of heroism of a guy who, when you get down to it, is gonna be okay no matter how things turn out.
The Boy once again encapsulates this in his laconic style: "It was pretty good but it could have grabbed me more."
This complete disconnect from historically significant events means the movie sort of drifts in its second half, devolving into a sort of money/body count (for hardware). And the end veers way to the left, implicating America in the subsequent rise of fanatic Islam. It's almost like--or maybe exactly like--the writer can't stand for America to have done something unequivocally good.
There are a number of things worth bitching about as far as the historical events that actually are portrayed as well. It's really quite challenging to imagine large swaths of the Democratic Left talking about killing Russians with the sort of vigor that is portrayed in this film. At the time, Reagan was soundly mocked for viewing the world in such a simplistic manner.
It's also weird to see the hero engaging in all sorts of sexist activities. Or activities that would be regarded as such today. At least if a Republican did them. This movie sort of makes you wonder why we have all those laws, all that grab-ass looks like fun for all involved.
Anyway, I give points to the film for showing that grassroots Reps were involved and concerned, and for showing that the Communists fielded a vicious army that routinely and deliberately engaged in the sorts of atrocities that a few outliers in the US Army commit (and are punished for).
It shouldn't be noteworthy but it is. I can't think of the last American film that portrayed the Soviets (and their satellite governments) as the horrors they were. Or any American film, come to think of it. (Das Leben Der Anderen should be required viewing for anyone who wants to push centralized economic planning. And even it's mild.)
Overall a flawed but fairly entertaining movie, especially if you're not too wrapped up in historical accuracy. Sort of a left wing Red Dawn. Top-notch acting. (I'm not a big Julia Roberts fan; this was probably my favorite of her work. Also, while I love Hoffman, he can veer toward the precious, and this was a nice switch from Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. ) Mike Nichols doesn't dawdle or have characters engage in lengthy speeches: Evil is shown and we're expected to recognize it as such.
It may not do well, of course. People are already sick of politics as we enter this election year, or so it seems. But in this year of highly political bombs, you could do worse.
I had read Extreme Mortman's review (via Instapundit) and figured I could risk this politically themed movie, as the subject--America's contribution to the Soviet-Afghanistan war--was of some interest. (EDIT: Actually Karl's review at Protein Wisdom, which looks at some of the more political reactions, was probably more influential.)
What I was immediately struck by was that the movie positively glorified what we now call "sexual harassment". Wilson is introduced to us--after the left end of a bookend scene with a medal ceremony assuring us that the Cold War never would have been won without him--at an '80s strippers 'n' coke party and he staffs his office with gorgeous chicks. Much of the negotiation the Congressmen does involves having sex with women. These things are obliquely referred to however, since the actual act of--well, the actual acts might take some of the sheen off of even Tom Hanks (last seen lending his credibility to The Simpson's Movie's dubious US government).
This part of the movie is fun. Hanks gets to pour on some of the southern charm he marvelously overplayed in the Coen brothers' Ladykillers. The movie picks up real speed when Philip Seymour Hoffman shows up as an offbeat CIA agent, and is humming along nicely when Julia Roberts does her turn as the aging Texan ex-beauty queen who pressures the Congressmen into acting to giving the Afghans armaments. (And unlike the Mortman, I had no trouble hearing either Hanks or Philip Seymour Hoffman, but it'll probably be inaudible in the TV mix.)
For a based-on-a-true-story, this is a rather odd film. The movie wisely avoids partisan politics for the most part, concentrating on the dysfunction of the process--with only a few scenes that (fairly, I'd say) show how the idiosyncrasies of a particular party. For example, Dems are shown backing the aid to Afghanistan for the "tough" street cred. (The CIA takes another huge black eye, though, both for missing the invasion and not backing the resistance.)
It seems, though, that this was partly accomplished by ignoring huge chunks of history. Reagan was referred to once in the movie--and only as "a Republican President". Democrats and media types who were (and still are) sympathetic to communism are completely ignored. The Afghanis themselves are practically props in the acts of heroism of a guy who, when you get down to it, is gonna be okay no matter how things turn out.
The Boy once again encapsulates this in his laconic style: "It was pretty good but it could have grabbed me more."
This complete disconnect from historically significant events means the movie sort of drifts in its second half, devolving into a sort of money/body count (for hardware). And the end veers way to the left, implicating America in the subsequent rise of fanatic Islam. It's almost like--or maybe exactly like--the writer can't stand for America to have done something unequivocally good.
There are a number of things worth bitching about as far as the historical events that actually are portrayed as well. It's really quite challenging to imagine large swaths of the Democratic Left talking about killing Russians with the sort of vigor that is portrayed in this film. At the time, Reagan was soundly mocked for viewing the world in such a simplistic manner.
It's also weird to see the hero engaging in all sorts of sexist activities. Or activities that would be regarded as such today. At least if a Republican did them. This movie sort of makes you wonder why we have all those laws, all that grab-ass looks like fun for all involved.
Anyway, I give points to the film for showing that grassroots Reps were involved and concerned, and for showing that the Communists fielded a vicious army that routinely and deliberately engaged in the sorts of atrocities that a few outliers in the US Army commit (and are punished for).
It shouldn't be noteworthy but it is. I can't think of the last American film that portrayed the Soviets (and their satellite governments) as the horrors they were. Or any American film, come to think of it. (Das Leben Der Anderen should be required viewing for anyone who wants to push centralized economic planning. And even it's mild.)
Overall a flawed but fairly entertaining movie, especially if you're not too wrapped up in historical accuracy. Sort of a left wing Red Dawn. Top-notch acting. (I'm not a big Julia Roberts fan; this was probably my favorite of her work. Also, while I love Hoffman, he can veer toward the precious, and this was a nice switch from Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. ) Mike Nichols doesn't dawdle or have characters engage in lengthy speeches: Evil is shown and we're expected to recognize it as such.
It may not do well, of course. People are already sick of politics as we enter this election year, or so it seems. But in this year of highly political bombs, you could do worse.
Speaking of Good Looking Old Folks....
I managed to catch Away From Her as it began it's pre-awards rounds this week. (These things seem to go in curious streaks, don't they? There was an ad for a documentary about a young guy who checks into an old folks home to see how they live.)
I had put off seeing this previously because I had been scarred by The Notebook a few years earlier. (I'll probably do a review of that film later on, because it ranks as one of the three worst films I've seen in a decade, and a good example of how you can love everyone involved in the making of a movie and hate the movie itself. But I digress.)
The incredibly talented Sarah Polley wrote for the screen and directed this film. Polley, first known to me as the little girl in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, has emerged as an adult with a formidable acting--and now writing and directing--talent.
Grant Anderson (played by Gordon Pinsent of Saint Ralph and The Good Shepherd) is married to Fiona (played by the still radiant Julie Christie) who has Alzheimer's. She forces him to put her in a home where, after an enforced 30-day absence, he returns to find she has fallen in love with another man, and regards him as a troubling confusion.
The movie reveals, in bits and pieces, their history together, the progression of her disease, the relaationship of her beau with his wife, Marian (Olympia Dukakis), and ultimately the relationship that Grant forms with Marian. It succeeds in making us care, while not hesitating to show the warts of the various characters.
Ultimately, I found it to be upbeat, as there is honesty and love on display, with difficult choices being made.
Julie Christie--who at 66, is often pointed out as being "young" to have Alzheimer's so severely--actually makes a particularly poignant victim. With a little acting judo, she turns her youthful looks into tragedy. I found her more appealing in this film than in Heaven Can Wait or any of the other flicks she did in the '60s and '70s.
But she's not shouldering the burden alone: Even Michael Murphy, who plays the non-verbal Aubrey, object of Fiona's newfound affections does a smashing job conveying an age which (one can only presume) none of these remarkably well-preserved old folks actually feel. (At least not to the oppressive degrees their characters do.)
The music, as I noticed it, was an excellent mix of classical (I noticed Bach's cantate no. 147) played in a jazz guitar style.
The whole thing was so good, and so polished, the director's insertion of a political statement stands out like a sore thumb. It's brief, fortunately, but it's the archetype of how "messages" can ruin films, it's so out of character with the rest of the movie.
I had put off seeing this previously because I had been scarred by The Notebook a few years earlier. (I'll probably do a review of that film later on, because it ranks as one of the three worst films I've seen in a decade, and a good example of how you can love everyone involved in the making of a movie and hate the movie itself. But I digress.)
The incredibly talented Sarah Polley wrote for the screen and directed this film. Polley, first known to me as the little girl in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, has emerged as an adult with a formidable acting--and now writing and directing--talent.
Grant Anderson (played by Gordon Pinsent of Saint Ralph and The Good Shepherd) is married to Fiona (played by the still radiant Julie Christie) who has Alzheimer's. She forces him to put her in a home where, after an enforced 30-day absence, he returns to find she has fallen in love with another man, and regards him as a troubling confusion.
The movie reveals, in bits and pieces, their history together, the progression of her disease, the relaationship of her beau with his wife, Marian (Olympia Dukakis), and ultimately the relationship that Grant forms with Marian. It succeeds in making us care, while not hesitating to show the warts of the various characters.
Ultimately, I found it to be upbeat, as there is honesty and love on display, with difficult choices being made.
Julie Christie--who at 66, is often pointed out as being "young" to have Alzheimer's so severely--actually makes a particularly poignant victim. With a little acting judo, she turns her youthful looks into tragedy. I found her more appealing in this film than in Heaven Can Wait or any of the other flicks she did in the '60s and '70s.
But she's not shouldering the burden alone: Even Michael Murphy, who plays the non-verbal Aubrey, object of Fiona's newfound affections does a smashing job conveying an age which (one can only presume) none of these remarkably well-preserved old folks actually feel. (At least not to the oppressive degrees their characters do.)
The music, as I noticed it, was an excellent mix of classical (I noticed Bach's cantate no. 147) played in a jazz guitar style.
The whole thing was so good, and so polished, the director's insertion of a political statement stands out like a sore thumb. It's brief, fortunately, but it's the archetype of how "messages" can ruin films, it's so out of character with the rest of the movie.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
If I Were King Of The Forest....
...not queen, not duke, not prince.
I was thinking lately about the copyright problem. If you're wondering "What copyright problem?" I find it hard to believe you're actually using a computer. But here. In a nutshell, content providers (the music, film and book industries) are trying to maintain archaic business models in a world where content consumers (thee and me) can download their stuff freely from the Internet.
There are a lot of monkeys in this particular wrench of course: Content providers have been progressively extending copyright beyond any reasonable level; the line between provider and consumer blurs as the means to produce and distribute content drops drastically; content consumers have gone from a relatively black-line situation of being able to copy content for personal use or backup, or for review or parody, to a world where the rules are vague and the punishments severe.
And so on.
All the while, increasingly draconian methods by providers continue to fail and to actually encourage piracy. The writing is on the wall and has been for decades, though we should not underestimate the ability of those whose business models are threatened to fail to read said writing till they are nearly out of business.
If it were me--if I were king of the forest--I would create a library with every film in it ever made. And I would charge precisely $1 for any film, highest quality print available and no attempt to lock it down. (No DRM or "digital rights management" as it euphemistically called.)
"But Blake," you say, "one dollar isn't very much. How can they make their money back at one dollar a pop? And won't every one steal their stuff if it's not locked down?"
To which I'd reply that you're competing with free (which Jack Valenti famously and incorrectly said was not something that could be competed with). The point isn't so much to provide the files (though being a reliable source is a selling point) as it is to store, index, recommend and serve said files.
I mean, think about this, even if storage were free (and cost will be a significant factor for years to come), if you maintain your own library, you're doing a fair amount of work--hardware and software.
I used the original Napster on precisely one occasion--to make a mix CD of songs I already had Why? It was far easier than going through my library, taking out the CDs (or God help me, the vinyl) ripping a track, burning it, etc.
Now that was a service! It was easier for me to use that service than to use what I had already purchased. That's value.
As for theft, it should be apparent now that it's inevitable. By locking down media, you sell your customers a worse product than they can get for free. (I can't tell you how many games I've been unable to play because of a problem with a DRM system.) The logic is apparently "because there are criminals, we are going to treat you, the paying customer, as one of them."
But, get this, at $1 a pop, with easy access and good search, why would you bother storing stuff
locally? You'd have a few favorites, but in most cases, you'd pay a buck for whatever you wanted and then drop it (or let it cycle out) when you were done with it for a while. Then, if you decided you want it again, you'd shell out a buck to look at it again.
And for a buck? You'd take a few risks here and there. Back when there were bargain theaters, we used to go to them to see movies we figured weren't very good. It was fun, and at $10 a movie has to be a lot better than it does at $3.
For a buck, what wouldn't you try?
Songs could be cheaper (because they're shorter and the volume people consume is much higher), maybe a dime or a quarter. Books are interesting because they can (and are) had for free from a library. But I think the principle is still the same:
Make it so easy and so cheap that the legal venue provides the best product for the exchange (of time and money). Yes, people will still take without paying. But I would bet your overall volume of sales would go up so much--much like the introduction of the hated (by providers) videotape created revenue streams they couldn't imagine--you'd enter a new realm of profitability.
And you could include tons of free stuff as well as work with the independents who would benefit from being in your library. Eventually, the roles would change, so you'd be a pure distributor. Why spend millions making a pop star when they're out there making themselves at no cost or risk to you?
It won't happen peacefully, of course. Change is frightening, and probably all the more so when it's inevitable.
I was thinking lately about the copyright problem. If you're wondering "What copyright problem?" I find it hard to believe you're actually using a computer. But here. In a nutshell, content providers (the music, film and book industries) are trying to maintain archaic business models in a world where content consumers (thee and me) can download their stuff freely from the Internet.
There are a lot of monkeys in this particular wrench of course: Content providers have been progressively extending copyright beyond any reasonable level; the line between provider and consumer blurs as the means to produce and distribute content drops drastically; content consumers have gone from a relatively black-line situation of being able to copy content for personal use or backup, or for review or parody, to a world where the rules are vague and the punishments severe.
And so on.
All the while, increasingly draconian methods by providers continue to fail and to actually encourage piracy. The writing is on the wall and has been for decades, though we should not underestimate the ability of those whose business models are threatened to fail to read said writing till they are nearly out of business.
If it were me--if I were king of the forest--I would create a library with every film in it ever made. And I would charge precisely $1 for any film, highest quality print available and no attempt to lock it down. (No DRM or "digital rights management" as it euphemistically called.)
"But Blake," you say, "one dollar isn't very much. How can they make their money back at one dollar a pop? And won't every one steal their stuff if it's not locked down?"
To which I'd reply that you're competing with free (which Jack Valenti famously and incorrectly said was not something that could be competed with). The point isn't so much to provide the files (though being a reliable source is a selling point) as it is to store, index, recommend and serve said files.
I mean, think about this, even if storage were free (and cost will be a significant factor for years to come), if you maintain your own library, you're doing a fair amount of work--hardware and software.
I used the original Napster on precisely one occasion--to make a mix CD of songs I already had Why? It was far easier than going through my library, taking out the CDs (or God help me, the vinyl) ripping a track, burning it, etc.
Now that was a service! It was easier for me to use that service than to use what I had already purchased. That's value.
As for theft, it should be apparent now that it's inevitable. By locking down media, you sell your customers a worse product than they can get for free. (I can't tell you how many games I've been unable to play because of a problem with a DRM system.) The logic is apparently "because there are criminals, we are going to treat you, the paying customer, as one of them."
But, get this, at $1 a pop, with easy access and good search, why would you bother storing stuff
locally? You'd have a few favorites, but in most cases, you'd pay a buck for whatever you wanted and then drop it (or let it cycle out) when you were done with it for a while. Then, if you decided you want it again, you'd shell out a buck to look at it again.
And for a buck? You'd take a few risks here and there. Back when there were bargain theaters, we used to go to them to see movies we figured weren't very good. It was fun, and at $10 a movie has to be a lot better than it does at $3.
For a buck, what wouldn't you try?
Songs could be cheaper (because they're shorter and the volume people consume is much higher), maybe a dime or a quarter. Books are interesting because they can (and are) had for free from a library. But I think the principle is still the same:
Make it so easy and so cheap that the legal venue provides the best product for the exchange (of time and money). Yes, people will still take without paying. But I would bet your overall volume of sales would go up so much--much like the introduction of the hated (by providers) videotape created revenue streams they couldn't imagine--you'd enter a new realm of profitability.
And you could include tons of free stuff as well as work with the independents who would benefit from being in your library. Eventually, the roles would change, so you'd be a pure distributor. Why spend millions making a pop star when they're out there making themselves at no cost or risk to you?
It won't happen peacefully, of course. Change is frightening, and probably all the more so when it's inevitable.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Statuette Hunting
It's that time of the year when all the movies designed for Oscar glory are released on to not the unsuspecting masses (who often have to wait months or weeks for a wide release) but the suspecting elite.
A lot of this annual burst of energy seems to have been absorbed or deflected by anti-war films. It's still possible these films will carry home Oscars, but I think Hollywood likes to be popular as well as right, and with the way the war seems to be going these days, rewarding anti-war films may prove to be neither.
And so we have a strange little low-budget film, The Man In The Chair, from Michael Schroeder, a man probably best known for introducing the world to a (occasionally topless) 17-year-old Angelina Jolie in the even lower budget Cyborg 2. (I have to admit I find that film watchable but that may have more to do with comparing the Jolie of then--awkward but still with a sort of presence--to the Jolie of now than any other quality of the film.)
Christopher Plummer plays lighting man "Flash Madden" who wanders around L.A. reading, drinking, smoking cuban cigars, and yelling at the screen at the Beverly, much to the amusement of juvenile delinquent Cameron Kincaid (played by Michael Angara) who spends his time in-between school and getting tossed in jail dreaming of making a movie.
This is to Christopher Plummer what last year's Venus was for Peter O'Toole. A film that no one is going to see, but which shows the old man's chops and gives him a shot at the little gold statue. 'course, O'Toole missed out on his because the Academy had given him a "get this guy an Oscar before he croaks" award in the previous years.
Plummer is not the icon O'Toole was, but his age shows far less on his face. A lot of the wide-open expressions O'Toole has used his whole career look overly broad now, with age pulling his long face down even longer. Plummer (who is three years older) seems young by comparison.
And he is good, as you might imagine. As is M. Emmet Walsh, letting himself be filmed in a most unflattering way. Robert Wagner joins the crew as the still rakishly good looking and rich arch-rival. (Also with a small role is one of my favorite character actors, George Murdock.) Another remarkably well-preserved specimen in the cast is the very lovely 65-year-old Margaret Blye
Am I obsessing on age here? Well, yeah, because the movie's about aging and what we do with the aged. Also, the cast is ten years too young. Flash was a young gaffer on Citizen Kane...but I kept thinking, "okay, he had to be born in 1920, making him 87...no way is Plummer 87." (He's 78.)
If I had to describe this movie in ten words or less, I'd call it "an afterschool special on steroids". It's very well done with a top-notch cast, tightly directed and edited (though with a gratuitous shaky-blurry-cam scene transition effect, in a style most commonly used by zombie horror flicks).
The story is kind of pat, a little clichéd, a bit run-of-the-mill. Old people teaching younger people, and aren't we horrible for not taking better care of, and respecting our senior citizens? Flash, through his horrible life mistakes, has learned that he might be better off now, if only he hadn't treated people so badly through the rest of his life.
Except, well, we're never sure about Mickey Hopkins (Walsh's character) who seems to have been abandoned by his daughter. He seems like a very nice fellow but he can't get his daughter to talk to him for five minutes.
I actually felt a sort of blowback after seeing this film. Are we supposed to generically care about old people? And take care of them? Even when they had an entire life to cultivate friends and family and did none of that? Do we feel sorry or empathize when they reach the end of that life alone?
Well, yeah, we do. But maybe somewhat begrudgingly.
Another thing that sort of annoyed me: One of the old characters dies in this film. I won't say who it is so as not to spoil anything but I will say I both saw it coming and hoped it wouldn't as soon as I realized what the movie was about. OK, if you're watching a movie about old people, it's natural some might die, especially if the movie spans the course of a year or longer.
This movie takes place over three weeks.
And the character just...dies. Rather conveniently, too. But unnecessarily, except maybe to give the whole thing a little more gravitas (and hopeful Oscar contenders a meaty scene).
What I liked about this film was the idea that, in the retirement homes of the San Fernando Valley, you could find a top-level crew still capable of making a high quality movie. A highly romantic notion, to be sure, and one that would've been better served by the whole crew getting together for ANOTHER movie after shooting the first one.
Nonetheless, it's a good film, with Oscar-worthy performances.
A lot of this annual burst of energy seems to have been absorbed or deflected by anti-war films. It's still possible these films will carry home Oscars, but I think Hollywood likes to be popular as well as right, and with the way the war seems to be going these days, rewarding anti-war films may prove to be neither.
And so we have a strange little low-budget film, The Man In The Chair, from Michael Schroeder, a man probably best known for introducing the world to a (occasionally topless) 17-year-old Angelina Jolie in the even lower budget Cyborg 2. (I have to admit I find that film watchable but that may have more to do with comparing the Jolie of then--awkward but still with a sort of presence--to the Jolie of now than any other quality of the film.)
Christopher Plummer plays lighting man "Flash Madden" who wanders around L.A. reading, drinking, smoking cuban cigars, and yelling at the screen at the Beverly, much to the amusement of juvenile delinquent Cameron Kincaid (played by Michael Angara) who spends his time in-between school and getting tossed in jail dreaming of making a movie.
This is to Christopher Plummer what last year's Venus was for Peter O'Toole. A film that no one is going to see, but which shows the old man's chops and gives him a shot at the little gold statue. 'course, O'Toole missed out on his because the Academy had given him a "get this guy an Oscar before he croaks" award in the previous years.
Plummer is not the icon O'Toole was, but his age shows far less on his face. A lot of the wide-open expressions O'Toole has used his whole career look overly broad now, with age pulling his long face down even longer. Plummer (who is three years older) seems young by comparison.
And he is good, as you might imagine. As is M. Emmet Walsh, letting himself be filmed in a most unflattering way. Robert Wagner joins the crew as the still rakishly good looking and rich arch-rival. (Also with a small role is one of my favorite character actors, George Murdock.) Another remarkably well-preserved specimen in the cast is the very lovely 65-year-old Margaret Blye
Am I obsessing on age here? Well, yeah, because the movie's about aging and what we do with the aged. Also, the cast is ten years too young. Flash was a young gaffer on Citizen Kane...but I kept thinking, "okay, he had to be born in 1920, making him 87...no way is Plummer 87." (He's 78.)
If I had to describe this movie in ten words or less, I'd call it "an afterschool special on steroids". It's very well done with a top-notch cast, tightly directed and edited (though with a gratuitous shaky-blurry-cam scene transition effect, in a style most commonly used by zombie horror flicks).
The story is kind of pat, a little clichéd, a bit run-of-the-mill. Old people teaching younger people, and aren't we horrible for not taking better care of, and respecting our senior citizens? Flash, through his horrible life mistakes, has learned that he might be better off now, if only he hadn't treated people so badly through the rest of his life.
Except, well, we're never sure about Mickey Hopkins (Walsh's character) who seems to have been abandoned by his daughter. He seems like a very nice fellow but he can't get his daughter to talk to him for five minutes.
I actually felt a sort of blowback after seeing this film. Are we supposed to generically care about old people? And take care of them? Even when they had an entire life to cultivate friends and family and did none of that? Do we feel sorry or empathize when they reach the end of that life alone?
Well, yeah, we do. But maybe somewhat begrudgingly.
Another thing that sort of annoyed me: One of the old characters dies in this film. I won't say who it is so as not to spoil anything but I will say I both saw it coming and hoped it wouldn't as soon as I realized what the movie was about. OK, if you're watching a movie about old people, it's natural some might die, especially if the movie spans the course of a year or longer.
This movie takes place over three weeks.
And the character just...dies. Rather conveniently, too. But unnecessarily, except maybe to give the whole thing a little more gravitas (and hopeful Oscar contenders a meaty scene).
What I liked about this film was the idea that, in the retirement homes of the San Fernando Valley, you could find a top-level crew still capable of making a high quality movie. A highly romantic notion, to be sure, and one that would've been better served by the whole crew getting together for ANOTHER movie after shooting the first one.
Nonetheless, it's a good film, with Oscar-worthy performances.
Friday, December 7, 2007
More On Languages, Programmers and the Hiring Thereof
This is an extension of an ongoing discussion Esther Schindler and I are having here and at CIO.com, which started as a discussion of programming language popularity, and has extended itself into a discussion of what sort of people one should hire. It's got a lot of "in-references", so if you're not a pretty heavy programming geek, you'll probably want to skip it.
Blake, you speak as though the choice is between the okay-quality experienced developer and the brilliant developer who doesn't happen to have programmed in, say, ObjectREXX or JavaScript or what have you. But it doesn't really work like that.
Well, yeah, it works like that when you foster an IT programming culture that favors results over dogma. Heh. It has to: You're working in Scheme or Smalltalk or Eiffel; you've just ruled out the programmer who, you know, graduated in '97 with a Java specialization because of all the money in the tech bubble.
Usually, an employer whose job req says "ObjectREXX would be a good plus" gets plenty of resumes from programmers who do have that experience.
Think if I ran an ad today for ObjectREXX programmers I'd get plenty of resumés? There's...uh...me...and...you? The same is true for a lot of great tools, like Squeak, Lisp, even regular REXX, and for that matter, even Delphi. But perhaps there's a point of agreement there.
At some level, what you're saying is: "This technology is good enough that we can afford to take a hit in the hiring department." A lot of us made that choice with OS/2, for example, and for the 10 years we used it, it was a good risk, even though it was almost impossible to find people in our area who knew it. It was just that productive.
Recently I worked with a company that programmed their tool in Delphi 7, and they had a bear of a time finding qualified people. We had some heavy discussions about better tools, because I saw that they had developed these huge systems to work around the problems that arise with statically typed languages. I'd say it actually hurt them, because to understand their code, you had to be well-versed in relatively cutting edge Delphi (even though they had stalled at D7, they were using interfaces, modeling tools, code generators, etc.).
But had they used Smalltalk, for example, they could have hugely reduced their burden, and in some respects made their code more accessible. The deal breaker was that they were pretty heavily reliant on code that others had written. I do some Java, not because I'm a fan of the language, but because sometimes that's where the code I don't want to write is.
And HR departments, keyword-driven as they are, probably don't pass along the resumes of the candidates who write, "But I can learn!" in the cover letters. So you may be happy to entertain the brilliant-but-inexperienced, and you might never encounter them.
IT really shouldn't use HR for hiring much, if at all. They're not competent to even filter out the first tier candidates. I've seen plenty of HR departments post ads where the only qualified candidates would be liars. You know, put ECMAScript and JavaScript on your resumé and see which one gets you hired.
Besides, people who can learn--in my experience, anyway--they don't advertise it because they don't realize how rare and precious a commodity it is. Certainly I didn't until, at one job, I picked up a threadbare manual for a proprietary language and environment, and coded a specimen cataloging system in two weeks, while the consultants whose proprietary environment it was were still busy negotiating their six-month/six-figure contract for the same system.
I don't say it to boast, as it was a mean feat that any reasonably competent programmer willing to learn could have done. But I couldn't, as you say, have gotten a job doing it. But I love having random programming challenges thrown at me, and I encourage the hiring of others who feel the same. In fact, the aforementioned Delphi 7 crew I worked with had a test: They gave you two hours to write as much of a program as you could. Easily one of the more fun application tests I've ever done.
Plus, of course, someone might say they're willing to learn, but they don't actually do so. It's another tangent entirely, but there's few things as awful as employing someone who really wants to be good at something but is only semi-competent.
The beauty of IT is that you can often shuffle that person off to a different role. I'm always checking out the systems guys for the latent programmer. You put people in as network admins and switch them to help desk, because they're good with people, or maybe to DBAs, or wherever.
I wouldn't recommend any hiring be done on the basis of candidate assertions. At least not ones like "I love to learn." or "I'm a real people person." But a programmer can talk to another programmer and within a few minutes ascertain what they're really capable of.
I do take your point, but I've seen lots of discussions among developers and consultants about their need to stay "relevant" with the choice of language (or toolset or whatever) they focus on. If there are lots of jobs asking for C#, and few asking for ObjectREXX, many developers will choose an option that makes them more marketable.
When I was doing ObjectREXX (and VisProRexx!), I was also doing C++, not because I think it shouldn't have a stake driven through its heart, but because my best tool for small, fast code was Borland's OS/2 IDE. And I don't keep up the unholy trinity of PHP, Perl and Python for fun (well, okay, Python is fun). And I can't write a line of Ruby without thinking, "Well, this is just Smalltalk for the faint-hearted."
I get the need for relevance. But if I saw a guy whose career path went from C to C++ to Java to C#, I'd hesitate before hiring. What does he do for fun? Because I'm not interested in hiring a programmer who doesn't program for fun.
Blake, you speak as though the choice is between the okay-quality experienced developer and the brilliant developer who doesn't happen to have programmed in, say, ObjectREXX or JavaScript or what have you. But it doesn't really work like that.
Well, yeah, it works like that when you foster an IT programming culture that favors results over dogma. Heh. It has to: You're working in Scheme or Smalltalk or Eiffel; you've just ruled out the programmer who, you know, graduated in '97 with a Java specialization because of all the money in the tech bubble.
Usually, an employer whose job req says "ObjectREXX would be a good plus" gets plenty of resumes from programmers who do have that experience.
Think if I ran an ad today for ObjectREXX programmers I'd get plenty of resumés? There's...uh...me...and...you? The same is true for a lot of great tools, like Squeak, Lisp, even regular REXX, and for that matter, even Delphi. But perhaps there's a point of agreement there.
At some level, what you're saying is: "This technology is good enough that we can afford to take a hit in the hiring department." A lot of us made that choice with OS/2, for example, and for the 10 years we used it, it was a good risk, even though it was almost impossible to find people in our area who knew it. It was just that productive.
Recently I worked with a company that programmed their tool in Delphi 7, and they had a bear of a time finding qualified people. We had some heavy discussions about better tools, because I saw that they had developed these huge systems to work around the problems that arise with statically typed languages. I'd say it actually hurt them, because to understand their code, you had to be well-versed in relatively cutting edge Delphi (even though they had stalled at D7, they were using interfaces, modeling tools, code generators, etc.).
But had they used Smalltalk, for example, they could have hugely reduced their burden, and in some respects made their code more accessible. The deal breaker was that they were pretty heavily reliant on code that others had written. I do some Java, not because I'm a fan of the language, but because sometimes that's where the code I don't want to write is.
And HR departments, keyword-driven as they are, probably don't pass along the resumes of the candidates who write, "But I can learn!" in the cover letters. So you may be happy to entertain the brilliant-but-inexperienced, and you might never encounter them.
IT really shouldn't use HR for hiring much, if at all. They're not competent to even filter out the first tier candidates. I've seen plenty of HR departments post ads where the only qualified candidates would be liars. You know, put ECMAScript and JavaScript on your resumé and see which one gets you hired.
Besides, people who can learn--in my experience, anyway--they don't advertise it because they don't realize how rare and precious a commodity it is. Certainly I didn't until, at one job, I picked up a threadbare manual for a proprietary language and environment, and coded a specimen cataloging system in two weeks, while the consultants whose proprietary environment it was were still busy negotiating their six-month/six-figure contract for the same system.
I don't say it to boast, as it was a mean feat that any reasonably competent programmer willing to learn could have done. But I couldn't, as you say, have gotten a job doing it. But I love having random programming challenges thrown at me, and I encourage the hiring of others who feel the same. In fact, the aforementioned Delphi 7 crew I worked with had a test: They gave you two hours to write as much of a program as you could. Easily one of the more fun application tests I've ever done.
Plus, of course, someone might say they're willing to learn, but they don't actually do so. It's another tangent entirely, but there's few things as awful as employing someone who really wants to be good at something but is only semi-competent.
The beauty of IT is that you can often shuffle that person off to a different role. I'm always checking out the systems guys for the latent programmer. You put people in as network admins and switch them to help desk, because they're good with people, or maybe to DBAs, or wherever.
I wouldn't recommend any hiring be done on the basis of candidate assertions. At least not ones like "I love to learn." or "I'm a real people person." But a programmer can talk to another programmer and within a few minutes ascertain what they're really capable of.
I do take your point, but I've seen lots of discussions among developers and consultants about their need to stay "relevant" with the choice of language (or toolset or whatever) they focus on. If there are lots of jobs asking for C#, and few asking for ObjectREXX, many developers will choose an option that makes them more marketable.
When I was doing ObjectREXX (and VisProRexx!), I was also doing C++, not because I think it shouldn't have a stake driven through its heart, but because my best tool for small, fast code was Borland's OS/2 IDE. And I don't keep up the unholy trinity of PHP, Perl and Python for fun (well, okay, Python is fun). And I can't write a line of Ruby without thinking, "Well, this is just Smalltalk for the faint-hearted."
I get the need for relevance. But if I saw a guy whose career path went from C to C++ to Java to C#, I'd hesitate before hiring. What does he do for fun? Because I'm not interested in hiring a programmer who doesn't program for fun.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Another Author That Doesn't Translate Well To Screen
Ray Bradbury.
I was thinking about him in the context of The Mist review. Movies based on his works tend to be gawdawful butcheries. The best version of his major work, Farenheit 451 was done by Truffaut, and I can't stand to watch it, it's so ugly.
No offense to Truffaut, but for me, the pleasure in reading Bradbury is the beautiful imagery he conjures.
So I think I can express a certain amount of hopeful anticipation in the knowledge that Mr. Darabont is going to leave the Stephen King farm to direct a new version of Farenheit 451.
I was thinking about him in the context of The Mist review. Movies based on his works tend to be gawdawful butcheries. The best version of his major work, Farenheit 451 was done by Truffaut, and I can't stand to watch it, it's so ugly.
No offense to Truffaut, but for me, the pleasure in reading Bradbury is the beautiful imagery he conjures.
So I think I can express a certain amount of hopeful anticipation in the knowledge that Mr. Darabont is going to leave the Stephen King farm to direct a new version of Farenheit 451.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Gore-illas In "The Mist"
OK, lame title. "The Mist" isn't all that gory. And what's an "illa" anyway?
That aside, I have to wonder if it's hard being Frank Darabont. Since Shawshank Redemption, Darabont directed The Green Mile and The Majestic, all based on Stephen King novels. None horror.
When he makes a movie, expectations are high. (Part of the relatively cool reception of The Majestic was doubtless the phenomenal quality of Shawshank and Mile.) And Stephen King's horror novels have made mincemeat out of some otherwise competent directors.
It's no coincidence that the movie isn't being advertised as "Stephen King's The Mist".
Anyway, I think Darabont could probably remake Maximum Overdrive into a quality film. The guy's got the chops. He does the atmosphere right and gets great performances, including from a lot of Darabont regulars, like the great William Sadler, Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn.
And it's a good thing, because the story is pretty threadbare. It's your basic barricaded-in-a-house movie, only it's a grocery store. This allows for some community dynamics that are not really much different then barricaded-in-a-house movies, though you got a bigger cast to work with.
In this case, the tension occurs between regular guy David Drayton (excellently played by Thomas Jane) and his group, versus crazy religious freak Mrs. Carmody (whom Marcia Gay Harden is a little too sexy to play but pulls it off anyway). I'd call her a "Jesus freak" but she's entirely Old Testament. I don't she ever invokes the J-Man.
And here we have precisely why King novels don't often translate well into movies. We have a pretty standard scenario (at least since Romero's Night of the Living Dead) which is larded with a bunch of clichés: Where did the monsters come from? The nearby military base no doubt. Who causes trouble? The crazy religious person. In a store with grocery clerks, a judge, some blue collar workers, some soldiers and a painter (art, not house), who naturally leaps into the lead? The artist. The soldiers, completely unarmed, are mostly a zero or negative asset.
The artist writes the story, the artist gets to pick the hero, right? Fair's fair.
And the underlying message, of course, is that an unknown fear results will turn people quickly toward superstition and barbarism. A message underscored by Mrs. Carmody's increasing power as the ordeal wears on. We get to see denial in many forms (horror movies almost universally have an element of denial).
Darabont's so good that you don't mind that the premise is actually pretty badly botched. Monsters show up. These Lovecraftian beasties are quickly shown to be mortal, however scary. Granted, the people in the store don't know the extent of the mist, whether it's local or global, but they have a piece of it well understood enough.
Wacky cults tend to spring up when the danger is less immediate and has no clear source. Think volcanos, droughts, natural disasters.
I didn't find that part of the premise particularly believable. (Read my rant on Tooth and Nail for another lengthy ripping of the barricaded-in-a-building genre.)
What's more, we're treated to the sort of illogic that King ought to be famous for. In this movie there are, uh, space-spiders that shoot their acidic space-web (hellloooo, xenomorph!) all over people for some nasty thrills. And this stuff is seriously nasty: One person is nearly instantly bisected by it.
At the same time, it's all over everything. Shelves, walls, doors, buildings, and even people are completely bound in this horrifyingly acidic web crap. But it only burns as needed for the scares.
Not too important, I suppose. Even less important is the whole premise that there's an entire other plane of existence out there that's just waiting for us to let them so they can use us as the base of their elaborate ecosystem. Despite being completely alien in every way to them, we're still a tasty and nutritious snack, suitable for laying eggs in (did I mention Alien? Well, I'm mentioning it again).
This is horror, people, not sci-fi. If you want a more scientifically realistic treatment of how an alien invasion might work, you might try my old friend David Gerrold's War Against The Chtorr series.
Anyway, The Boy put it best in his review: "It's a good movie but the ending was a little too ironic for my taste."
Endings are tricky. There are only a few ways to end the barricaded-in-a-building story. The threat can be removed or escaped, it can turn out to be a global, persistent problem doomed to chase mankind through a series of sequels, or...both (think Night of the Living Dead).
I'll give Darabont credit: I didn't see the ending coming till the last shot was fired (about a minute before the actual reveal). But while The Boy called it "ironic", I'm more inclined to call it "mean". It isn't really sold well, either. (There will be plenty who love the movie and hate the ending.) I didn't hate it. You know, it wasn't the Lincoln Monument with an Ape's Head on it. But it was the meanest thing I've seen in a movie in a long time.
That aside, I have to wonder if it's hard being Frank Darabont. Since Shawshank Redemption, Darabont directed The Green Mile and The Majestic, all based on Stephen King novels. None horror.
When he makes a movie, expectations are high. (Part of the relatively cool reception of The Majestic was doubtless the phenomenal quality of Shawshank and Mile.) And Stephen King's horror novels have made mincemeat out of some otherwise competent directors.
It's no coincidence that the movie isn't being advertised as "Stephen King's The Mist".
Anyway, I think Darabont could probably remake Maximum Overdrive into a quality film. The guy's got the chops. He does the atmosphere right and gets great performances, including from a lot of Darabont regulars, like the great William Sadler, Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn.
And it's a good thing, because the story is pretty threadbare. It's your basic barricaded-in-a-house movie, only it's a grocery store. This allows for some community dynamics that are not really much different then barricaded-in-a-house movies, though you got a bigger cast to work with.
In this case, the tension occurs between regular guy David Drayton (excellently played by Thomas Jane) and his group, versus crazy religious freak Mrs. Carmody (whom Marcia Gay Harden is a little too sexy to play but pulls it off anyway). I'd call her a "Jesus freak" but she's entirely Old Testament. I don't she ever invokes the J-Man.
And here we have precisely why King novels don't often translate well into movies. We have a pretty standard scenario (at least since Romero's Night of the Living Dead) which is larded with a bunch of clichés: Where did the monsters come from? The nearby military base no doubt. Who causes trouble? The crazy religious person. In a store with grocery clerks, a judge, some blue collar workers, some soldiers and a painter (art, not house), who naturally leaps into the lead? The artist. The soldiers, completely unarmed, are mostly a zero or negative asset.
The artist writes the story, the artist gets to pick the hero, right? Fair's fair.
And the underlying message, of course, is that an unknown fear results will turn people quickly toward superstition and barbarism. A message underscored by Mrs. Carmody's increasing power as the ordeal wears on. We get to see denial in many forms (horror movies almost universally have an element of denial).
Darabont's so good that you don't mind that the premise is actually pretty badly botched. Monsters show up. These Lovecraftian beasties are quickly shown to be mortal, however scary. Granted, the people in the store don't know the extent of the mist, whether it's local or global, but they have a piece of it well understood enough.
Wacky cults tend to spring up when the danger is less immediate and has no clear source. Think volcanos, droughts, natural disasters.
I didn't find that part of the premise particularly believable. (Read my rant on Tooth and Nail for another lengthy ripping of the barricaded-in-a-building genre.)
What's more, we're treated to the sort of illogic that King ought to be famous for. In this movie there are, uh, space-spiders that shoot their acidic space-web (hellloooo, xenomorph!) all over people for some nasty thrills. And this stuff is seriously nasty: One person is nearly instantly bisected by it.
At the same time, it's all over everything. Shelves, walls, doors, buildings, and even people are completely bound in this horrifyingly acidic web crap. But it only burns as needed for the scares.
Not too important, I suppose. Even less important is the whole premise that there's an entire other plane of existence out there that's just waiting for us to let them so they can use us as the base of their elaborate ecosystem. Despite being completely alien in every way to them, we're still a tasty and nutritious snack, suitable for laying eggs in (did I mention Alien? Well, I'm mentioning it again).
This is horror, people, not sci-fi. If you want a more scientifically realistic treatment of how an alien invasion might work, you might try my old friend David Gerrold's War Against The Chtorr series.
Anyway, The Boy put it best in his review: "It's a good movie but the ending was a little too ironic for my taste."
Endings are tricky. There are only a few ways to end the barricaded-in-a-building story. The threat can be removed or escaped, it can turn out to be a global, persistent problem doomed to chase mankind through a series of sequels, or...both (think Night of the Living Dead).
I'll give Darabont credit: I didn't see the ending coming till the last shot was fired (about a minute before the actual reveal). But while The Boy called it "ironic", I'm more inclined to call it "mean". It isn't really sold well, either. (There will be plenty who love the movie and hate the ending.) I didn't hate it. You know, it wasn't the Lincoln Monument with an Ape's Head on it. But it was the meanest thing I've seen in a movie in a long time.
On Programming Language Popularity
My old pal and CIO editor Esther Schindler has written a blog entry with the deliberately inflammatory title of "Is Computer Language Popularity Important?"
Well, you gotta drive traffic somehow.
And it is a good, if hoary, question. While Esther follows up the question of which language is "best" by adding "best for what?", it should be fairly obvious that the continuation of "Is popularity important" is "important to whom?"
Before going into that, though, let's pick some points (hey, it's almost a fisking):
So, is the language the tool, then? No, that's not a really good analogy either. The environment (JBuilder's IDE, debugger, etc.) is really the tool. That's what you're using to put your materials together with. And therein lies a clue: The language is sort of like the materials--it's the medium in which you build. (The platform comes in to play as well, like a foundation.)
I doubt anyone would consider the materials used in building as being "completely personal". But since human-written code is all mulched down in to the same zeroes and ones, there is an interchangeability you get as far as the final product goes.
But even there, the analogy falls apart because code seldom dies. Code is a factory you use to produce software. For any real project, you'll spend the vast majority of your time going back to the factory to retool the product.
There might be a political correctness to saying the decision is completely personal, but no coder believes that. There are quantifiable differences between toolsets and languages. Otherwise, "best for what?" would make no sense as a question.
Esther and I used to hang out on Compuserve's Computer Language Magazine Forum with such luminaries as Jeff Duntemann and David Gerrold. (Just to name two: That forum was a freaking Algonquin Round Table of programming genius. It was there I learned what little humility I have.) If memory serves, David was on the language side--but he's also a professional writer of quality sci-fi, so you know, he's got that goin' for him.
When I program, I think of what I want to accomplish--the end result--and then I organize it using whatever conceptual tools I have handy (often graph paper, if I need to write stuff down), and then (and only then) do I code it.
I learned, in order: Basic, Assembler, PL/I, Pascal, C, Smalltalk, Rexx, C++, Eiffel, Java...well, and it gets blurry after this point, but I've used most of the common scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Python, Javascript, Ruby) as well as C#. I occasionally still reluctantly do macros in Basic, but I spent most of my seven years programming Basic hoping for something better. (PL/I was great but I sure didn't have it on my 8086.) I've probably done more Pascal programming in the past 20 years than any other language but I surely don't think in it. (At least, not until the last possible moment.) But I've gone through periods where I've done nothing but REXX or C# or whatever. (Right now I'm primarily doing Delphi-style Pascal, Squeak-flavored Smalltalk, SQL, Flash, and Javascript.)
In fact, to my mind, a good language is one you don't think about much. Smalltalk versus, say, C++, with its subtlety and ambiguities.
Smalltalk has probably been the biggest influence on me, and I had been programming for 10+ years before I learned it. (But it's also not just a language, so it can change the way you see the game.)
(Obviously this is tongue-in-cheek, but wouldn't that be great: Only write code when you want to or when it would make you rich.)
As for when I'm hiring, or have a say in hiring, I never look for programming languages. I look for aptitude and flexibility. In most cases, I'd rather take a great programmer and teach them a new language, then a mediocre programmer who's familiar with a particular paradigm.
I could say a lot more than this but that's enough for now.
Well, you gotta drive traffic somehow.
And it is a good, if hoary, question. While Esther follows up the question of which language is "best" by adding "best for what?", it should be fairly obvious that the continuation of "Is popularity important" is "important to whom?"
Before going into that, though, let's pick some points (hey, it's almost a fisking):
At the developer level, language choice is completely personal. Like picking a brand of hammer or carving knife, the tool should fit well in your hand. Some people think better in Python than in PHP, and God help anyone who thinks in LISP.The tool analogy is probably the only one available but it's just not a very good one. If I use CodeGear's JBuilder to program a web-based front-end in Java, the language doesn't really parallel with the brand--the brand (Codegear JBuilder) does.
So, is the language the tool, then? No, that's not a really good analogy either. The environment (JBuilder's IDE, debugger, etc.) is really the tool. That's what you're using to put your materials together with. And therein lies a clue: The language is sort of like the materials--it's the medium in which you build. (The platform comes in to play as well, like a foundation.)
I doubt anyone would consider the materials used in building as being "completely personal". But since human-written code is all mulched down in to the same zeroes and ones, there is an interchangeability you get as far as the final product goes.
But even there, the analogy falls apart because code seldom dies. Code is a factory you use to produce software. For any real project, you'll spend the vast majority of your time going back to the factory to retool the product.
There might be a political correctness to saying the decision is completely personal, but no coder believes that. There are quantifiable differences between toolsets and languages. Otherwise, "best for what?" would make no sense as a question.
Programming language adoption follows the genetic rules behind duck imprinting: the first creature a duckling sees is perceived as its parent. My first programming languages were PL/1 and FORTRAN, and despite writing production code in several others, from standards like C and REXX to obscure languages like Mary2. Yet, I can write FORTRAN code in any language.A lot of people believe this. And I suppose it must be true for some people. They tell me they think using language, so I believe them. When I tell them I don't think using language--I think using thoughts that I then translate into language--they often don't believe me.
Esther and I used to hang out on Compuserve's Computer Language Magazine Forum with such luminaries as Jeff Duntemann and David Gerrold. (Just to name two: That forum was a freaking Algonquin Round Table of programming genius. It was there I learned what little humility I have.) If memory serves, David was on the language side--but he's also a professional writer of quality sci-fi, so you know, he's got that goin' for him.
When I program, I think of what I want to accomplish--the end result--and then I organize it using whatever conceptual tools I have handy (often graph paper, if I need to write stuff down), and then (and only then) do I code it.
I learned, in order: Basic, Assembler, PL/I, Pascal, C, Smalltalk, Rexx, C++, Eiffel, Java...well, and it gets blurry after this point, but I've used most of the common scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Python, Javascript, Ruby) as well as C#. I occasionally still reluctantly do macros in Basic, but I spent most of my seven years programming Basic hoping for something better. (PL/I was great but I sure didn't have it on my 8086.) I've probably done more Pascal programming in the past 20 years than any other language but I surely don't think in it. (At least, not until the last possible moment.) But I've gone through periods where I've done nothing but REXX or C# or whatever. (Right now I'm primarily doing Delphi-style Pascal, Squeak-flavored Smalltalk, SQL, Flash, and Javascript.)
In fact, to my mind, a good language is one you don't think about much. Smalltalk versus, say, C++, with its subtlety and ambiguities.
Smalltalk has probably been the biggest influence on me, and I had been programming for 10+ years before I learned it. (But it's also not just a language, so it can change the way you see the game.)
How do you decide which languages are "acceptable" in your shop? Is it because your favored development environment (such as Eclipse or .NET) builds in support for one language suite? (Thus shops choosing Visual Studio would bless C#, VB.NET, and occasionally C++, with a smattering of IronPython accepted.) Or do you look for what programming languages are "in" and thus it's easy to hire developers affordably?So, now we're getting to the "whom" in the popularity question. She's primarily talking about employers. For most programmers, they almost couldn't care how popular their languages are. For me, I want any language I use to be popular enough that if I have a need for a particular piece of code, I don't have to write it if I don't want to, I can find it on the web.
(Obviously this is tongue-in-cheek, but wouldn't that be great: Only write code when you want to or when it would make you rich.)
As for when I'm hiring, or have a say in hiring, I never look for programming languages. I look for aptitude and flexibility. In most cases, I'd rather take a great programmer and teach them a new language, then a mediocre programmer who's familiar with a particular paradigm.
I could say a lot more than this but that's enough for now.
"It was a good movie but the ending was too ironic for me."
That's the boy's review of the new Darabont/King flick The Mist.
Monday, December 3, 2007
About The Boy
I should mention at this point that one of my frequent companions on my trips to the movies is The Boy, a precocious 12-year-old right winger (honestly, I didn't know they made 12-year-old right wingers) who is at an age I remember well.
The Two Towers was ruined for him by the completely unrealistic (from a military strategy standponit) battle of Helm's Deep.
He thought Beowulf was stupid. And Shoot 'em Up! And...well, most of the actions movies that really are stupid. I remember being that age and thinking the same thing about Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Seriously, it took me a decade to get over Star Wars' stupidity and accept it on its own terms.)
He enjoyed Lars and the Real Girl and described Amazing Grace as non-stop action (rather perceptively, I must say, even if the action involves a lot of legal wrangling).
Anyway, in the future, you may see me add "The Boy says...'It was stupid'" or something, and now you know that it's not my inner 12-year-old, but a real, live boy. (Unless I'm lying about this whole post! Oooh! Meta!)
The Two Towers was ruined for him by the completely unrealistic (from a military strategy standponit) battle of Helm's Deep.
He thought Beowulf was stupid. And Shoot 'em Up! And...well, most of the actions movies that really are stupid. I remember being that age and thinking the same thing about Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Seriously, it took me a decade to get over Star Wars' stupidity and accept it on its own terms.)
He enjoyed Lars and the Real Girl and described Amazing Grace as non-stop action (rather perceptively, I must say, even if the action involves a lot of legal wrangling).
Anyway, in the future, you may see me add "The Boy says...'It was stupid'" or something, and now you know that it's not my inner 12-year-old, but a real, live boy. (Unless I'm lying about this whole post! Oooh! Meta!)
Two Hours In The Uncanny Valley
At the behest of my partner-in-crime, Loaded Questions Kelly, I went to see Beowulf.
There's a theory called The Uncanny Valley that is applicable here. I quote from Wikipedia:
In other words, when something is very humanlike, but not quite there, we tend to reject it. One can think of many reasons why a corpse is creepy, but why mannequins? How about a Real Doll? Well, okay, lotta reasons that's creepy.
Beowulf is two hours in the Uncanny Valley. Better than Final Fantasy, in some ways, and presumably better than director Zemeckis' earlier work, The Polar Express, which I could not bring myself to watch, Beowulf still had me thinking thoughts like, "Hey, that almost looks like Anthony Hopkins!"
They spent millions creating animated models of Hopkins, Robin Wright (Princess Bride) Penn and of course, Ray Winstone, but they clearly devoted a huge amount of time and energy to the Jolie model. In some shots, from some angles, it's very impressive. Because the "hits" are so good, the "misses" are terribly jarring, reminding you that, in fact, it's not Jolie but an amazing simulation.
With Hopkins, you sorta think, "Hey, that kinda looks like Sir Anthony," but actually, with both him and Jolie, you miss their subtler facial twitches and tics. Maybe Hopkins over-acts in general, but whatever the reason, his model seems flat. Some of the biggest misfires with Jolie's model is a failure to capture her seductiveness. (Though, in fairness to her animators, I can't recall a time she's been a truly evil character, as she is here.)
Winstone and Penn hardly look like themselves, or realistic at all, but that sort of works in their favor. I don't know Winstone enough by look. And, to be honest, I have a strange sort of uncanny valley feeling whenever I see Penn, especially in Princess Bride. I have some sort of disconnect between my brain being told she's a beautiful princess and what my eyes are seeing. (Not that she's ugly or anything, it's just an odd feeling I get when I see her, which the movie actually recreated pretty well.)
Obviously, I'm rambling about the animation here but that's because it was always on my mind. As with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Final Fantasy, I'm constantly thinking about the technique while I'm watching it. It's very tiring. Even the more adventurous animé techniques (like those in Appleseed) usually vanish as the movie progresses.
Not for me. Not with this sort of CGI. (Pixar, no problem.)
I didn't see the 3D version. This will be the first iteration of a new 3D technique I've missed in my lifetime. It usually barely works for me and almost always gives me a headache. Plus, the movies are almost always pure crap. (Exceptions being the original versions of The House of Wax and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Back in my day, they didn't even try.)
Anyhoo.
This movie takes the thinly plotted Old English poem Beowulf and, uh, oh, hell, does it matter? OK, basically, the movie takes a straightforward story of a guy who beats the crap out of two evil monsters, and then a third evil monster when he's old, and turns it into a story about a guy who beats the crap out of one evil monster, has sex with the second, and thereby spawns the third, which then kill each other.
And, yes, if you're keeping score at home, monster #2 (Ms. Jolie) lives on to, presumably, inspire a sequel.
The whole sex angle is...different. And I guess it adds some depth to an otherwise straightforward story. Though since he ends up dying as a result of his own earlier sin, it takes some of the shine off the story. The story's Beowulf was not a man with any sort of weaknesses (as pointed out by this review by Dan at Gay Patriot). They foreshadow Beowulf's fall from grace by showing him losing a swimming contest because he stopped to kill some sea serpents and canoodle with some mermaids.
Of course, when you combine that with Hrothgar's (Hopkins) previous dalliance with Grendel's mother, it's obvious what's going to happen.
Stupid though it may seem, Walthow's (Penn) icy perfection made Beowulf's tryst seem somewhat understandable (even if she and Beowulf weren't yet involved). Even as an evil water demon, Jolie seemed a lot more inviting than Penn.
Of course, I don't remember any women in the poem.
I do remember a naked fight.
I would have also sworn that Beowulf wins his last fight through the power of Jesus.
The mind, it plays tricks.
Well, overall, it wasn't horrible. Mostly not boring. The Boy sez, "It was stupid."
Look for Crispin Glover as GRENDEL! in an upcoming musical version.
There's a theory called The Uncanny Valley that is applicable here. I quote from Wikipedia:
as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion
In other words, when something is very humanlike, but not quite there, we tend to reject it. One can think of many reasons why a corpse is creepy, but why mannequins? How about a Real Doll? Well, okay, lotta reasons that's creepy.
Beowulf is two hours in the Uncanny Valley. Better than Final Fantasy, in some ways, and presumably better than director Zemeckis' earlier work, The Polar Express, which I could not bring myself to watch, Beowulf still had me thinking thoughts like, "Hey, that almost looks like Anthony Hopkins!"
They spent millions creating animated models of Hopkins, Robin Wright (Princess Bride) Penn and of course, Ray Winstone, but they clearly devoted a huge amount of time and energy to the Jolie model. In some shots, from some angles, it's very impressive. Because the "hits" are so good, the "misses" are terribly jarring, reminding you that, in fact, it's not Jolie but an amazing simulation.
With Hopkins, you sorta think, "Hey, that kinda looks like Sir Anthony," but actually, with both him and Jolie, you miss their subtler facial twitches and tics. Maybe Hopkins over-acts in general, but whatever the reason, his model seems flat. Some of the biggest misfires with Jolie's model is a failure to capture her seductiveness. (Though, in fairness to her animators, I can't recall a time she's been a truly evil character, as she is here.)
Winstone and Penn hardly look like themselves, or realistic at all, but that sort of works in their favor. I don't know Winstone enough by look. And, to be honest, I have a strange sort of uncanny valley feeling whenever I see Penn, especially in Princess Bride. I have some sort of disconnect between my brain being told she's a beautiful princess and what my eyes are seeing. (Not that she's ugly or anything, it's just an odd feeling I get when I see her, which the movie actually recreated pretty well.)
Obviously, I'm rambling about the animation here but that's because it was always on my mind. As with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Final Fantasy, I'm constantly thinking about the technique while I'm watching it. It's very tiring. Even the more adventurous animé techniques (like those in Appleseed) usually vanish as the movie progresses.
Not for me. Not with this sort of CGI. (Pixar, no problem.)
I didn't see the 3D version. This will be the first iteration of a new 3D technique I've missed in my lifetime. It usually barely works for me and almost always gives me a headache. Plus, the movies are almost always pure crap. (Exceptions being the original versions of The House of Wax and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Back in my day, they didn't even try.)
Anyhoo.
This movie takes the thinly plotted Old English poem Beowulf and, uh, oh, hell, does it matter? OK, basically, the movie takes a straightforward story of a guy who beats the crap out of two evil monsters, and then a third evil monster when he's old, and turns it into a story about a guy who beats the crap out of one evil monster, has sex with the second, and thereby spawns the third, which then kill each other.
And, yes, if you're keeping score at home, monster #2 (Ms. Jolie) lives on to, presumably, inspire a sequel.
The whole sex angle is...different. And I guess it adds some depth to an otherwise straightforward story. Though since he ends up dying as a result of his own earlier sin, it takes some of the shine off the story. The story's Beowulf was not a man with any sort of weaknesses (as pointed out by this review by Dan at Gay Patriot). They foreshadow Beowulf's fall from grace by showing him losing a swimming contest because he stopped to kill some sea serpents and canoodle with some mermaids.
Of course, when you combine that with Hrothgar's (Hopkins) previous dalliance with Grendel's mother, it's obvious what's going to happen.
Stupid though it may seem, Walthow's (Penn) icy perfection made Beowulf's tryst seem somewhat understandable (even if she and Beowulf weren't yet involved). Even as an evil water demon, Jolie seemed a lot more inviting than Penn.
Of course, I don't remember any women in the poem.
I do remember a naked fight.
I would have also sworn that Beowulf wins his last fight through the power of Jesus.
The mind, it plays tricks.
Well, overall, it wasn't horrible. Mostly not boring. The Boy sez, "It was stupid."
Look for Crispin Glover as GRENDEL! in an upcoming musical version.
OK, So I Suck...
...at musical parody (among other things).
I love a good musical. I love a good musical parody almost as much.
o/~So if you see a hunchback,
Why not take him out to lunch, jack!~\o
I miss The Critic.
I love a good musical. I love a good musical parody almost as much.
o/~So if you see a hunchback,
Why not take him out to lunch, jack!~\o
I miss The Critic.
Grendel!
I don't really have a post here. I've just always thought that if they made a musical out of "Beowulf", it would be called:
GRENDEL!
...with the exclamation point, natch.
Grendel!
He's an evil with an appetite for blood!
An appetite like no other!
But even though he's a monster,
He's still good to his mother!
Grendel!
GRENDEL!
...with the exclamation point, natch.
Grendel!
He's an evil with an appetite for blood!
An appetite like no other!
But even though he's a monster,
He's still good to his mother!
Grendel!
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