Ladies and gentlemen, I've been becoming more and more exasperated with my inability to have full iPod functionality under Linux. Sure, Rhythmbox is great for music, and so is Amarok, and both of these are really quite popular solutions, but nothing compares to what I've just come across.
Floola.
Seriously. It's for Linux, Mac, and Windows. I don't know about the Mac or Windows versions, but under Linux, it's a single, pre-compiled executable file. I had to install one package, but that was very easy to do, and well worth the extra work. This is the best non-iTunes iPod interface I've ever seen.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
In Brief Episode 2
I have finally, at long last, watched the two sequels to Mad Max: The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I've got something to say about the latter two, but before I get there, let me fulfill this episode of In Brief.
Mad Max (1979)
In this, Mel Gibson's first real movie role and George Miller's first feature-length film, we meet Max Rockatansky. He lives in a world that seems "post-apocalyptic," as they say, although that isn't exactly explained until this movie's sequel. At best, the world has degenerated into a state of lonesome highway speed demons banding together in gangs and destroying each other using spectacular speed- and stunt-driving maneuvers. Max is a cop whose difficult job is to stop them. But when Max's personal life begins to be affected by terrorizing street gangs, he takes it personally and takes violent vengeance on those who have threatened his family.
Mad Max is a movie that I consider a guilty pleasure, but every time I call it that, I feel like I'm doing the movie some horrible injustice. It's really a good movie, especially if you watch it with the original Australian soundtrack. See, when the movie was originally released, the American distributors thought that the Australian accents were too difficult for American audiences to understand. This is, of course, untrue. If you were able to follow Steve Irwin, you can make it through Mad Max. The movie is well-shot, well-acted, and full of really good, explosive action. No, your brain doesn't need to be functioning to get the full effect of Mad Max. You can just enjoy it. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
I've always heard this refered to as simply "The Road Warrior," but IMDb has the main title simply as "Mad Max 2." This is my review, so I'll call it what I want to, dammit.
At the end of Mad Max, Officer Rockatansky takes care of business and disappears down a long, dusty highway, a rogue, a changed man, his loyal dog trailing him. The first thing that happens here -- we're given insight into how the world came to be the way it is. It involves a war over oil and a sudden lack of gasoline, which is now a more precious commodity than ever before. Nuclear war breaks out, leaving the world in a state of street gangs and Mad Maxes.
Max almost immediately makes enemies with a new street gang whose crew members include Dude With Leather Shirt Everywhere Except His Nipples, Guy With Loud Red Mohawk Who Rides A Motorcycle With Nipple Guy Riding Bitch, and their leader, Really Big Guy Who Appears To Be Wearing Clothing But Who Is Really Just Wearing Strappy Leather Underwear. In truth, I think their real names are Pappagallo, The Toadie, and Lord Humungus. There's this oil refinery that's producing actual gasoline in the middle of the Australian desert, and there's a group of people who have set up camp around it. They want to get out and go to the sea a couple hundred miles away, but cannot due to their inability to move the enormous tank of gas with them. Max can help, and he leverages the community for some gas of his own. It is action-packed and explosive, and also a pretty good movie if the outrageous and frequently skimpy costumes don't bother you too much. Most of all, this film and its prequel remind me of a time when special effects were real and not computer generated. That's perhaps the best part of both of these.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Here we find Max entering one of the more civilized areas of post-apocalypse Australia: a place called Bartertown. Max's instant reluctance to obey the rules earns him a visit to the leader of Bartertown, Aunty Entity, played (to death) by Tina Turner. His audacity impresses her, and he learns of the town's method of producing electricity: burning pig feces for the methane, and of their method of dealing out justice: a caged, domed arena complete with fatal weapons called Thunderdome. Max causes some trouble and is banished from the outpost, where he wanders on the verge of death in the desert until he discovers a random river and a colony of youngsters there who believe Max is Captain Walker, an assumed war hero who they idolize as a messiah. Max and the new crew head back to Bartertown to teach them a lesson.
This movie starts off really well, with better cinematography than the previous two, but quickly loses steam when you realize that Tina Turner's part is not really a small one. Also, where the first two movies are gritty and ugly, giving a very grimey and visceral feeling like the audience should be glad they don't have to live in the films' setting, "Beyond Thunderdome" suffers from being gritty and pretty. It feels more like Indiana Jones - a glitzy, Hollywood adventure flick -- than a disgusting piece with any real merit. I found it to be pretty enjoyable, but without the same flair that the two prior films had. I won't be watching it again any time soon.
Something worth saying
I feel that both The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome have something important to say. Or at least they start off that way. Niether really goes into much depth on their subjects of choice, but here's what I get:
The Road Warrior talks about the scarcity of gasoline and how it really is in short supply. It talks about a war that broke out over that matter. What are we fighting for in Iraq right now if not oil? Let the politicians say what they want - it's a war for freedom, it's a holy war, whatever. It's a war for oil. How far away are we from a reality like Max's?
This ultimately leads to a situation as in Beyond Thunderdome, where justice is served gladiator-style and political struggles occur based around those who claim to have political control over an energy crisis much like our own, and those who have manual control over it. Of course, at the present moment, the people with political power are also the ones with manual power, and that's a bad thing, too, but we may be headed toward this kind of gridlocked eventuality.
I wish the movies explored these themes more fully, but they don't. They're action flicks, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it still all leaves me feeling like I wanted to see a proposed solution. Perhaps that's what the action was after all. If there's a conflict without an easy solution, simply destroy the problem completely and totally with unrestrained, vigilante violence. That's not too far off from the message of V for Vendetta, which is one of the most important films of the past decade. People should not be afraid of their government. Governments should fear their people. Likewise, the folks who think they control their system should never forget the likes of "Mad" Max Rockastansky, a man who doesn't understand totalitarian control, and won't stand for it.
Mad Max (1979)
In this, Mel Gibson's first real movie role and George Miller's first feature-length film, we meet Max Rockatansky. He lives in a world that seems "post-apocalyptic," as they say, although that isn't exactly explained until this movie's sequel. At best, the world has degenerated into a state of lonesome highway speed demons banding together in gangs and destroying each other using spectacular speed- and stunt-driving maneuvers. Max is a cop whose difficult job is to stop them. But when Max's personal life begins to be affected by terrorizing street gangs, he takes it personally and takes violent vengeance on those who have threatened his family.
Mad Max is a movie that I consider a guilty pleasure, but every time I call it that, I feel like I'm doing the movie some horrible injustice. It's really a good movie, especially if you watch it with the original Australian soundtrack. See, when the movie was originally released, the American distributors thought that the Australian accents were too difficult for American audiences to understand. This is, of course, untrue. If you were able to follow Steve Irwin, you can make it through Mad Max. The movie is well-shot, well-acted, and full of really good, explosive action. No, your brain doesn't need to be functioning to get the full effect of Mad Max. You can just enjoy it. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
I've always heard this refered to as simply "The Road Warrior," but IMDb has the main title simply as "Mad Max 2." This is my review, so I'll call it what I want to, dammit.
At the end of Mad Max, Officer Rockatansky takes care of business and disappears down a long, dusty highway, a rogue, a changed man, his loyal dog trailing him. The first thing that happens here -- we're given insight into how the world came to be the way it is. It involves a war over oil and a sudden lack of gasoline, which is now a more precious commodity than ever before. Nuclear war breaks out, leaving the world in a state of street gangs and Mad Maxes.
Max almost immediately makes enemies with a new street gang whose crew members include Dude With Leather Shirt Everywhere Except His Nipples, Guy With Loud Red Mohawk Who Rides A Motorcycle With Nipple Guy Riding Bitch, and their leader, Really Big Guy Who Appears To Be Wearing Clothing But Who Is Really Just Wearing Strappy Leather Underwear. In truth, I think their real names are Pappagallo, The Toadie, and Lord Humungus. There's this oil refinery that's producing actual gasoline in the middle of the Australian desert, and there's a group of people who have set up camp around it. They want to get out and go to the sea a couple hundred miles away, but cannot due to their inability to move the enormous tank of gas with them. Max can help, and he leverages the community for some gas of his own. It is action-packed and explosive, and also a pretty good movie if the outrageous and frequently skimpy costumes don't bother you too much. Most of all, this film and its prequel remind me of a time when special effects were real and not computer generated. That's perhaps the best part of both of these.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Here we find Max entering one of the more civilized areas of post-apocalypse Australia: a place called Bartertown. Max's instant reluctance to obey the rules earns him a visit to the leader of Bartertown, Aunty Entity, played (to death) by Tina Turner. His audacity impresses her, and he learns of the town's method of producing electricity: burning pig feces for the methane, and of their method of dealing out justice: a caged, domed arena complete with fatal weapons called Thunderdome. Max causes some trouble and is banished from the outpost, where he wanders on the verge of death in the desert until he discovers a random river and a colony of youngsters there who believe Max is Captain Walker, an assumed war hero who they idolize as a messiah. Max and the new crew head back to Bartertown to teach them a lesson.
This movie starts off really well, with better cinematography than the previous two, but quickly loses steam when you realize that Tina Turner's part is not really a small one. Also, where the first two movies are gritty and ugly, giving a very grimey and visceral feeling like the audience should be glad they don't have to live in the films' setting, "Beyond Thunderdome" suffers from being gritty and pretty. It feels more like Indiana Jones - a glitzy, Hollywood adventure flick -- than a disgusting piece with any real merit. I found it to be pretty enjoyable, but without the same flair that the two prior films had. I won't be watching it again any time soon.
Something worth saying
I feel that both The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome have something important to say. Or at least they start off that way. Niether really goes into much depth on their subjects of choice, but here's what I get:
The Road Warrior talks about the scarcity of gasoline and how it really is in short supply. It talks about a war that broke out over that matter. What are we fighting for in Iraq right now if not oil? Let the politicians say what they want - it's a war for freedom, it's a holy war, whatever. It's a war for oil. How far away are we from a reality like Max's?
This ultimately leads to a situation as in Beyond Thunderdome, where justice is served gladiator-style and political struggles occur based around those who claim to have political control over an energy crisis much like our own, and those who have manual control over it. Of course, at the present moment, the people with political power are also the ones with manual power, and that's a bad thing, too, but we may be headed toward this kind of gridlocked eventuality.
I wish the movies explored these themes more fully, but they don't. They're action flicks, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it still all leaves me feeling like I wanted to see a proposed solution. Perhaps that's what the action was after all. If there's a conflict without an easy solution, simply destroy the problem completely and totally with unrestrained, vigilante violence. That's not too far off from the message of V for Vendetta, which is one of the most important films of the past decade. People should not be afraid of their government. Governments should fear their people. Likewise, the folks who think they control their system should never forget the likes of "Mad" Max Rockastansky, a man who doesn't understand totalitarian control, and won't stand for it.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Mojave Experiment...
I'm pissed. And not just kinda. Like, really really pissed.
Microsoft has recently put forth a series of advertisements in promotion of Windows Vista, their latest stodgy, crippled, overpriced operating system, in which they trick innocent people (possibly actors) into thinking that the operating system they're using on a demo computer is the "brand new Windows operating system, Windows Mojave." They've set up a website as well (MojaveExperiment.com to spread the word. Then comes the big reveal where they tell their victims that it's not really this "Mojave" thing, but Windows Vista. It's all very carefully planned and misleading. Some evidence of that follows. For the record, I had to view several videos to gather all of the information that is here. I actually had to work to find out all the relevant information. All the data is not present at any one single point, and I imagine this is all part of their need to trick folks into trying the operating system.
One video on the site says that the laptops they're using for the Mojave tests are "brand new, straight out of the box and into the hands of the users." Another video says that the laptops are actually these two Microsoft employees' work computers, and are at least a year old. A third agrees that they're a year old, but claims that the laptops are really the employees' personal computers. It seems the only consistency here is inconsistency. And don't tell me that two computer geeks have owned a computer running Vista for over a year and use it for work haven't modified the software in all that time. Assuming it came preinstalled with Vista (and it did), I should hope that they've at least installed Service Pack 1 since then. That's miles better than it used to be. Also, I see a strange lack of desktop icons that should be there on a brand new, bloated as hell, crammed to the brim with advertisements, new HP computer. Also the desktop background's different. And I'm sure they've installed MS Office and a few other programs since Vista comes with absolutely no software that anybody could use to do any kind of job, especially one within Microsoft. So there's no way you're going to get me to believe that these computers have not had any customization over the past full year. Hell, you can barely convince me that they've been running for a full year without needing an OS reinstall.
They also say that they're not "special" laptops, just HP dv2000 series models running Intel Core 2 Duos at 2.2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and an NVidia GForce 8400 video processor. This laptop (when new, and there aren't any more new since they are, in fact, over a year old) cost about $1700. That's a pretty special laptop, especially considering that most affordable laptops still don't even have dual-core or 64-bit processors in them, and usually 1 GB of RAM or less. I would go as far as to say that the laptop they use in these videos is at least twice as powerful than your average affordable laptop. The video card in that puppy is one model number lower than what I have in my desktop to play some pretty high-end video games. It's not the best thing on the market for desktops, but it's pretty close to the best thing on the market for laptops. There's nothing that this laptop shouldn't be able to do. I have run web and file servers on less.
Another video talks about security. If we are to believe the video, Windows Defender makes Vista "60% less likely to be infected by a virus," which, in my personal experience, is untrue. In my personal experience, Windows Defender does nothing at all. The official Microsoft statistics for it show that 22 million pieces of spyware were detected by Defender during its trial run under Windows XP, and that 14 million of those were removed. That's where the 60% statistic comes from (it's actually 63%). However, we are not told from these statistics (as it is impossible to tell us) how many pieces of spyware it did not detect at all. Also, we're told that you're 60% less likely to get infected, which is not the truth. What this shows is that you are 100% as likely to get infected, but 63% of it will be removed. A 63% removal ratio is not a good ratio. Not good at all. If I have one piece of spyware on my computer, I want it gone. I don't want to rely on a nearly fifty/fifty chance of it actually being removed.
Another demo shows us that programs can be run in a Compatibility Mode. This is a counter to users' complaints that Vista is not compatible with a great deal of software and drivers. However, we all remember XP's Compatibility Mode and how it never worked. In my personal experience, the one in Vista is no better. I am at a loss to find anything other than how-to articles related to the subject, so I have no third-party opinion to share with you on the subject of Vista's Compatibility Mode. The demo in the video shows the experimenter running what appears to be a Bluetooth application in Compatibility Mode, though we are never shown that it didn't run in Normal Mode first. We have no proof from Microsoft that this is a valid test.
The "organization" video comes with a notice from the gentleman on the right-hand side that these computers are "definitely, definitely not top-of-the-line." Then the guy on the left lists the amazing specs of the computer. Then the guy on the right reiterates that it's "definitely not top-of-the-line." They tell you that this computer can be purchased for $650 to $700. This, of course, is not a lie. You can buy that computer at that price because that computer is now a year old and has no warranty left on it. A new one, as I have said, will run you well over $1000. This video emphasizes the Start menu search function, which I'll admit is a pretty cool feature. Too bad they stole it straight off Mac, but that's not the point. The point is they've actually implemented a cool feature. Not to belittle it or anything, but their method of demonstrating it here is somewhat flawed. It works like this --
LEFT: How would you start the calculator under Windows XP?
RIGHT: (fumbling for words) I'd go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Calculator -- It takes too long.
LEFT: Well, check this out.
(Left clicks on the Start menu, types "calc" and up comes the calculator at the top of the Start Menu.)
LEFT: See? You don't even have to type the whole thing!
The trouble with this exchange is that the filename for the calculator application is, in fact, calc.exe. So when you type "calc" into the start bar, it's finding calc.exe, not necessarily the term "Calculator." The same affect can be achieved by clicking Start -> Run and typing "calc" in Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, XP, and even Vista. Though this demonstration is flawed, I still will admit to the usefulness of the Start menu search function. It really does work pretty well, but only if you have the Windows File Indexing service on all the time, which can be taxing on the proc and memory of your computer. It's something I ordinarily turn off because, well, I know where I keep my files. I have organization and don't rely on my computer for such.
There are other new features involved, and you can watch all these demos at the website. There are some really cool things that Vista can do, but the long and short of it is that it's way too heavy on your hardware to be considered a useful operating system. For instance, when Vista creates thumbnail images for pictures on your hard drive or thumb drive or whatever storage medium you've chosen, it keeps the full-size image in memory, then performs a shrink command on it, then displays the shrunken image in the explorer window, keeping the larger image in memory. This created a problem for me when I was looking through photos taken with a professional camera. Each image occupied 15-20 MB depending on the color range in the picture. Instead of taking the images one at a time, shrinking them, then keeping the shrunken version in memory, it tried to load several hundred 15-20 MB images in memory at once. 1GB of memory couldn't hold it all. It fell back on Page File. I had to force reboot the PC to get out of the function due to the interconnected design of the OS and double my computer's memory just to be able to browse.
My point is that you should go ahead and try Vista if you want, but for God's sake don't pay for it first. Microsoft is running an extremely dishonest advertisement to overcome a lot of their software's completely valid detractions. They're not fixing much because to do so would involve writing an entirely new OS, and they'll be damned if they'll do that and not ask for another $200. It's bad enough that they're asking for that right now for an OS that is inferior in many ways to a great deal of free-of-charge operating systems. Just see my link list at the top-right for more information on this type of stuff.
Microsoft has recently put forth a series of advertisements in promotion of Windows Vista, their latest stodgy, crippled, overpriced operating system, in which they trick innocent people (possibly actors) into thinking that the operating system they're using on a demo computer is the "brand new Windows operating system, Windows Mojave." They've set up a website as well (MojaveExperiment.com to spread the word. Then comes the big reveal where they tell their victims that it's not really this "Mojave" thing, but Windows Vista. It's all very carefully planned and misleading. Some evidence of that follows. For the record, I had to view several videos to gather all of the information that is here. I actually had to work to find out all the relevant information. All the data is not present at any one single point, and I imagine this is all part of their need to trick folks into trying the operating system.
One video on the site says that the laptops they're using for the Mojave tests are "brand new, straight out of the box and into the hands of the users." Another video says that the laptops are actually these two Microsoft employees' work computers, and are at least a year old. A third agrees that they're a year old, but claims that the laptops are really the employees' personal computers. It seems the only consistency here is inconsistency. And don't tell me that two computer geeks have owned a computer running Vista for over a year and use it for work haven't modified the software in all that time. Assuming it came preinstalled with Vista (and it did), I should hope that they've at least installed Service Pack 1 since then. That's miles better than it used to be. Also, I see a strange lack of desktop icons that should be there on a brand new, bloated as hell, crammed to the brim with advertisements, new HP computer. Also the desktop background's different. And I'm sure they've installed MS Office and a few other programs since Vista comes with absolutely no software that anybody could use to do any kind of job, especially one within Microsoft. So there's no way you're going to get me to believe that these computers have not had any customization over the past full year. Hell, you can barely convince me that they've been running for a full year without needing an OS reinstall.
They also say that they're not "special" laptops, just HP dv2000 series models running Intel Core 2 Duos at 2.2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and an NVidia GForce 8400 video processor. This laptop (when new, and there aren't any more new since they are, in fact, over a year old) cost about $1700. That's a pretty special laptop, especially considering that most affordable laptops still don't even have dual-core or 64-bit processors in them, and usually 1 GB of RAM or less. I would go as far as to say that the laptop they use in these videos is at least twice as powerful than your average affordable laptop. The video card in that puppy is one model number lower than what I have in my desktop to play some pretty high-end video games. It's not the best thing on the market for desktops, but it's pretty close to the best thing on the market for laptops. There's nothing that this laptop shouldn't be able to do. I have run web and file servers on less.
Another video talks about security. If we are to believe the video, Windows Defender makes Vista "60% less likely to be infected by a virus," which, in my personal experience, is untrue. In my personal experience, Windows Defender does nothing at all. The official Microsoft statistics for it show that 22 million pieces of spyware were detected by Defender during its trial run under Windows XP, and that 14 million of those were removed. That's where the 60% statistic comes from (it's actually 63%). However, we are not told from these statistics (as it is impossible to tell us) how many pieces of spyware it did not detect at all. Also, we're told that you're 60% less likely to get infected, which is not the truth. What this shows is that you are 100% as likely to get infected, but 63% of it will be removed. A 63% removal ratio is not a good ratio. Not good at all. If I have one piece of spyware on my computer, I want it gone. I don't want to rely on a nearly fifty/fifty chance of it actually being removed.
Another demo shows us that programs can be run in a Compatibility Mode. This is a counter to users' complaints that Vista is not compatible with a great deal of software and drivers. However, we all remember XP's Compatibility Mode and how it never worked. In my personal experience, the one in Vista is no better. I am at a loss to find anything other than how-to articles related to the subject, so I have no third-party opinion to share with you on the subject of Vista's Compatibility Mode. The demo in the video shows the experimenter running what appears to be a Bluetooth application in Compatibility Mode, though we are never shown that it didn't run in Normal Mode first. We have no proof from Microsoft that this is a valid test.
The "organization" video comes with a notice from the gentleman on the right-hand side that these computers are "definitely, definitely not top-of-the-line." Then the guy on the left lists the amazing specs of the computer. Then the guy on the right reiterates that it's "definitely not top-of-the-line." They tell you that this computer can be purchased for $650 to $700. This, of course, is not a lie. You can buy that computer at that price because that computer is now a year old and has no warranty left on it. A new one, as I have said, will run you well over $1000. This video emphasizes the Start menu search function, which I'll admit is a pretty cool feature. Too bad they stole it straight off Mac, but that's not the point. The point is they've actually implemented a cool feature. Not to belittle it or anything, but their method of demonstrating it here is somewhat flawed. It works like this --
LEFT: How would you start the calculator under Windows XP?
RIGHT: (fumbling for words) I'd go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Calculator -- It takes too long.
LEFT: Well, check this out.
(Left clicks on the Start menu, types "calc" and up comes the calculator at the top of the Start Menu.)
LEFT: See? You don't even have to type the whole thing!
The trouble with this exchange is that the filename for the calculator application is, in fact, calc.exe. So when you type "calc" into the start bar, it's finding calc.exe, not necessarily the term "Calculator." The same affect can be achieved by clicking Start -> Run and typing "calc" in Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, XP, and even Vista. Though this demonstration is flawed, I still will admit to the usefulness of the Start menu search function. It really does work pretty well, but only if you have the Windows File Indexing service on all the time, which can be taxing on the proc and memory of your computer. It's something I ordinarily turn off because, well, I know where I keep my files. I have organization and don't rely on my computer for such.
There are other new features involved, and you can watch all these demos at the website. There are some really cool things that Vista can do, but the long and short of it is that it's way too heavy on your hardware to be considered a useful operating system. For instance, when Vista creates thumbnail images for pictures on your hard drive or thumb drive or whatever storage medium you've chosen, it keeps the full-size image in memory, then performs a shrink command on it, then displays the shrunken image in the explorer window, keeping the larger image in memory. This created a problem for me when I was looking through photos taken with a professional camera. Each image occupied 15-20 MB depending on the color range in the picture. Instead of taking the images one at a time, shrinking them, then keeping the shrunken version in memory, it tried to load several hundred 15-20 MB images in memory at once. 1GB of memory couldn't hold it all. It fell back on Page File. I had to force reboot the PC to get out of the function due to the interconnected design of the OS and double my computer's memory just to be able to browse.
My point is that you should go ahead and try Vista if you want, but for God's sake don't pay for it first. Microsoft is running an extremely dishonest advertisement to overcome a lot of their software's completely valid detractions. They're not fixing much because to do so would involve writing an entirely new OS, and they'll be damned if they'll do that and not ask for another $200. It's bad enough that they're asking for that right now for an OS that is inferior in many ways to a great deal of free-of-charge operating systems. Just see my link list at the top-right for more information on this type of stuff.
Monday, September 8, 2008
In Brief Episode 1
This new "In Brief" segment will contain short reviews of movies that I've watched recently. This weekend, I picked up a couple of old movies. Netflix shipped me Bringing Up Baby and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Between the two of them, I had an enjoyable evening.
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
In this madcap comedy directed by Howard Hawkes, a paleontoligist (Cary Grant) set to be married to a rather uptight colleague has a handful of run-ins with a truly psychotic woman (Katherine Hepburn) who talks ceaselessly and won't listen to reason, much less anything else. Craziness breaks out, circulating a tame leopard delivered to the wrong address and a dog who has stolen the final, precious bone to Grant's brontosaurus skeletal construction.
I guess this movie was alright. It was certainly funny, though it took some work for me to get into it, and it caused a great deal of exasperation on my part for about half an hour in the middle. It's just that the plot is almost too unbelievable even for a screwball comedy. I know that disbelief is a huge part of what's supposed to make these movies funny, but I had a lot of trouble buying into this one.
Also, Katherine Hepburn is truly annoying. And by truly annoying, I mean that there has never been a more annoying performance in cinema history. Not even the cameraman character from Cloverfield was this obnoxious. Still, it's probably worth watching, but only if you're the kind of person who really likes old movies.
Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf? (1966)
In this example of fine writing adapted from stage to screen, Elizabeth Taylor plays the daughter of the headmaster of a respectable private college who is married to a history professor (Richard Burton). The new biology professor and his hysterical (in both the crazy and funny way) wife have been invited over to the Taylor/Burton house after the welcoming party, where they continue to drink and drink and drink. By the time the night's over, betrayals and confessions have been drawn into the light.
This is a one-time movie for me. It's a very good movie, but not a very enjoyable one. It stars the most despairing, self-loathing, despicable cast of characters I've ever witnessed. A viewer cannot root for any of these characters because the viewer must hate every last one of them. They gripe, complain, argue, scream, and commit acts of adultery in plain view and knowledge of one another.
Like I said, the film is worth watching. I'd go so far as to say that it's mandatory viewing material... But just once. Seriously. I don't ever want to spend another two hours with this group of drunken miscreants. The worst thing is that they keep passing it all off as games. It's all a game to everybody, whether they'll admit it or not, and the end effect is an enormous level of depression on the movie's audience.
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
In this madcap comedy directed by Howard Hawkes, a paleontoligist (Cary Grant) set to be married to a rather uptight colleague has a handful of run-ins with a truly psychotic woman (Katherine Hepburn) who talks ceaselessly and won't listen to reason, much less anything else. Craziness breaks out, circulating a tame leopard delivered to the wrong address and a dog who has stolen the final, precious bone to Grant's brontosaurus skeletal construction.
I guess this movie was alright. It was certainly funny, though it took some work for me to get into it, and it caused a great deal of exasperation on my part for about half an hour in the middle. It's just that the plot is almost too unbelievable even for a screwball comedy. I know that disbelief is a huge part of what's supposed to make these movies funny, but I had a lot of trouble buying into this one.
Also, Katherine Hepburn is truly annoying. And by truly annoying, I mean that there has never been a more annoying performance in cinema history. Not even the cameraman character from Cloverfield was this obnoxious. Still, it's probably worth watching, but only if you're the kind of person who really likes old movies.
Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf? (1966)
In this example of fine writing adapted from stage to screen, Elizabeth Taylor plays the daughter of the headmaster of a respectable private college who is married to a history professor (Richard Burton). The new biology professor and his hysterical (in both the crazy and funny way) wife have been invited over to the Taylor/Burton house after the welcoming party, where they continue to drink and drink and drink. By the time the night's over, betrayals and confessions have been drawn into the light.
This is a one-time movie for me. It's a very good movie, but not a very enjoyable one. It stars the most despairing, self-loathing, despicable cast of characters I've ever witnessed. A viewer cannot root for any of these characters because the viewer must hate every last one of them. They gripe, complain, argue, scream, and commit acts of adultery in plain view and knowledge of one another.
Like I said, the film is worth watching. I'd go so far as to say that it's mandatory viewing material... But just once. Seriously. I don't ever want to spend another two hours with this group of drunken miscreants. The worst thing is that they keep passing it all off as games. It's all a game to everybody, whether they'll admit it or not, and the end effect is an enormous level of depression on the movie's audience.
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