rebootied

In the Scorpion TV show, as encouragement for his team of four geniuses, the lead character at one point trots out a line: "We have a collective IQ of 700!"

So does a preschool classroom full of five-year-olds. What a stupid thing to say. Hardly genius. 

(during formal dinner at Lecter's home)

Hannibal: First and worst sign of sociopathic behavior: cruelty to animals

Jack: That doesn't apply in the kitchen.

Hannibal: I have no taste for animal cruelty; which is why I employ an ethical butcher.

Bella: An ethical butcher? Be kind to animals and then eat them?

Hannibal: I'm afraid I insist on it.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: I've started watching this movie twice, and haven't been able to finish it yet. The first time, I started the movie quite late and its peaceful, surreal, melancholy world proved too much a soporific. The second time, it had that effect on my wife, though I was enjoying it and wide awake. She just could not parse the humor. My explanation of "Well, to Americans... some Americans, this is quite funny" did not hold water, so to speak. Next time I'll try to watch it alone, possibly with some Portuguese beer and wearing a red toque. "ESTEBAN! ESTEBAN!"

A Beautiful Mind: I watched this on a plane twice and was really impressed. Ron Howard can not make a bad film to save his life; I've been a fan since Coccoon, and I even liked How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Acting is top notch, understated and believable throughout the entire film, without an excess of emotionally manipulative schmaltz. Ed Harris is perfectly cast, and it is always amazing to see the actress Jennifer Connelly became despite her atrocious beginning in Labyrinth. What was she, 14 at that time? I'd be pissed if people judged my art based on what I could churn out at 14, so I should cut her some slack. More than anything else, I'm entranced by the film's ability to induce empathy for a sufferer of schizophrenia. What it comes down to is that we're all broken in some way, and it's just part of what we are, and how we do what we do. In John Nash's case, he's both more broken and more gifted.

And the film does a lot better on a nice TV than watching on a 5" screen with minimal contrast and color depth.

Also watched through ep. 7 of Burn Notice season 2 (still fun), and the first 4 episodes of Warehouse 13 which I'm hoping picks up, because the setting and gadgets are really fun. It's X-Files meets Indiana Jones, or at least the OSS guys from the end of Raiders. The producers should be hiring Ken Hite (princeofcairo ) to spruce up their doo-dads and science hokum. Then again, I think Ken Hite should be hired to spiff up the Tomb Raider storyline as well, which I've got top men working on right now. Top. Men.

Or I'm just not that into it.

I'm watching the series now, and up to ep. 5 -- it's no Firefly. It's no Buffy, either. The basic premise should be to have at least one character we like or sympathize with. Because Echo has no sense of self in her tabula rasa state, and the other characters she plays are not around long enough for us to develop a bond with (and are sometimes not that likable either), and because all the other Actives also have this characteristic. This leaves the only consistent characters to be the highly morally compromised agency members, such as their security chief egotist, the programmer egotist, the boss-lady egotist, and Echo's handler who is complicit in the abusive operations. Sure he's looking after her, but if he's got any real streak of morality he'd do what he could to rescue Echo and expose the company. Or possibly he's a long-term fabricated amalgam personality himself, incapable of betrayal. That might be interesting.

Then there's an FBI agent who is being successfully duped and observed at every turn,who has had exactly one montage sequence in the first 5 eps. supposedly showing how tough and determined he is. 

Did Whedon forget what drives character dramas? Or is he just working us around until he stabs someone in the chest?

The upgrade from iPod 5G (classic style) to iPod Touch is not like moving from 1.n to 2.0. This is not even a 3.0 experience; this is some whole other new thing, like waking up and finding out your dog can talk.

This week on iTunes there's a free download for a TV show called "Primeval." It's about dinosaurs invading a generic and ill-defined British countryside through a rip in the spacetime continuum. Let me save you the time I wasted on it: IT IS BAD. Not "laughably bad," or "fun bad," just bad. I've seen better representations of dinosaurs and deeper plotlines in coloring books.

MPAA wants to stop DVRs from recording some movies:
MPAA has pressed its Petition for Expedited Special Relief on behalf of Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Brothers. How did these media companies get an FCC proceeding so fast? Ars bets that hiring former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy as their attorney helped. Abernathy supported former FCC Chair Michael Powell's drastic relaxation of the agency's media ownership rules in 2003, along with Kevin Martin, now head of the agency.

Movies go through a timeline of staged releases that lasts about three years. First they go to theaters; 60 days after that they start showing up in airplanes and hotels; in 120 days from their theatrical release they transfer to DVD and Internet download; about a month later to video on demand/pay-per-view; by the end of the year to premium subscription systems like HBO and Showtime; and eventually to basic cable and free TV.

MPAA says these studios want to release their movies to multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) "significantly earlier and prior to DVD release"—although the trade groups' filing won't say exactly how much sooner. But in exchange for the accelerated service, MPAA wants permission to obtain SOC blocking of recording capabilities. The group promises that once said movies have reached the home video sale/rental stage, the blocking will stop. (remainder of article) (via /.)

I know there's a bunch of you who think Cory Doctorow's a loudmouth, but he's got one thing right about DRM and copy protection: nobody wakes up and says to themselves, "Gee, I really want to do less with my media today." And that's all this is about; the MPAA wants to be able to restrict your ability to use the technology you bought in a way that you've already been using it. Horse puckey.

I'm going back to books. Well, videogames and books.

Books:
Spook Country - I cannot seem to finish this book, and there's only about an 1/8th of it left. The tidbits of wry, Gibson wit and insight are present, but evenly spaced throughout the book; instead of constant, they're consistent. I don't have much sympathy for any of the characters, save Brown and Milgrim, because they're stand-ins for the American populace, both the misguided and outdated conservatives, and the willingly self-medicated and self-victimizing liberals. They're the reason I'll eventually finish the book.
Godland Celestial Edition One - A loaner from stevenkaye, I was prepared to not much like this book. It's a tribute to comics as pop art, largely mimicking Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's writing style, as it might be effected in modern times. Edit: Somehow forgot to add that I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, and found it very thought-provoking in terms of how culture has changed in the last 30 years, particularly where comics fit in to society.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier - Different from the first two, but still very good. I'm about 3/4ths finished, so no spoilers as yet, please! It should be noted that, if you're going to pay US$30 for a comic book, this is what you should get. The damned thing's an artifact of modern media; it's made from comics, straight prose, illustrated text, handwritten footnotes, and postcard props, with many of those being printed on paper specific to their normal presentation. And the dust jacket removes to reveal the black cover and embossed logo of the titular Dossier itself. So. Neat-o.

Games:
Tomb Raider Legend - A present from weezie13. This is a lot more fun than I'd expected, since many reviews said Lara handles like a water-laden cow. She's pretty nimble, though a little less than the Prince of Persia, from which much of the gameplay seems to replicate. I've cleared one time trial so far, and will probably try a few more; I'm always interested to see new ways to encourage players to revisit a level, as well as get extra mileage out of painstakingly created world art.
Burger King's Pocketbike Racer - Shut up! No, just shut it! It's fun! It's buggy, simplistic, and unbalanced. It's unable to find other Xbox Live races no matter when I check (though I can start my own, and have had a Friend join). But I've found it to be engaging in a "just one more race" way, and have felt genuine animosity toward some of the AI characters, so this is probably the best US$4 I've ever played.

Movies:
Catwoman (off HDD recorder) - It takes a lot of effort to make a bad movie out of anything that features Halle Berry shaking her ass in a backless bustier and leather jeans with strategic rips in them. But, wow, this is just tremendously bad. The fight sequences are a bunch of half-second, no set up quick cuts, and all of the climbing and running action is done by a CG version of Halle Berry that looks only marginally more believable than Neo from the big Agent Smith fight in Matrix Reloaded. And this leaves aside any complaints I might voice about abusing the character license, making something that has nothing to do with the original character. At one point this movie was going to be a Tim Burton flick with Michelle Pfeiffer, following on the events of Batman Returns. Gah. I thought this was going to be the worst movie this month, but then I saw:
Paycheck (off HDD recorder) - HEY! Everyone, please quit giving Hong Kong directors Hollywood-level budgets. When something's dumb, or makes no sense, or is cheesy, but it's in the context of a movie which cost 1/10th or 1/50th of a Hollywood action movie, IT STILL ROCKS. When Ben Affleck suddenly develops bo-staff skills at the end of a movie, it's substantially less plausible and harder to overlook than if some HK actor does.