I have only one opinion of modern James Bond films: enough. Enough of the same old tired formula of spies, explosions, spies, girls, spies, espionage, sex, bigger explosions, guns, violence, blah blah blah. Repeat sixty billion times, watch the money roll in. James Bond has become the McDonalds of the film business: fast food that makes people fat with over consumption (although I am thinking more of the producers than those that watch the bloody things). You can argue that such a franchise generates lots of money for our economy through taxes, tourism and so on. Smoking raises lots of tax money and contributes to the economy too – but that doesn’t mean to say it’s right.

Once upon a time, I did like James Bond films. I was particularly fond of A View to A Kill and Moonraker. Up until they finished adapting the books. When they started going down the route of writing their own stories, things started getting boring. And when they started releasing more non-adapted stories more frequently, even more so.

People have actually made careers solely on the basis of James Bond. People in the film industry praise James Bond films for keeping the industry alive. Well, if that’s the case, this entire film industry of ours is frickin’ doomed. We have simply got to have something bigger, better and most importantly something that isn’t a franchise that keeps our film industry going.

There is more to the British film industry than the likes of James Bond and Harry Potter. Lucrative and popular they may be, but it doesn’t necessarily make it right nor does it make for originality. And that’s something I think we’re sorely missing right now.

Change the tune, for crying out loud.

While I appreciate that Apple haven’t been on the ball with this one, criticising others for their choices is both unprofessional and pointless. Everybody has different workflows and both production companies and clients have got to work together to ensure that they can work effectively. Changing products each and every time that features are “improved” or removed is a complete pain in the arse. It’s expensive, it’s a lot of work and

I’ve said on the forum that if you want something that does exactly what you want, you’ve got to either pay somebody to develop the software or you’ve got to develop it yourself. Look at how things are done in VFX – a lot of software has been developed internally. Hell, some of it has got to the stage where it’s been released for sale or taken on by third party developers and developed further still.

I can’t expect any software developer to incorporate features I want without throwing them a lot of money to do so. It’s foolhardy for anybody to expect Apple, Adobe, Avid or anybody else to magically come up with a product that does everything you want and be everything to everybody.

Apple have made mistakes and they’re paying for them. They are, after all, primarily a consumer business – they always have been. Business and professionals have been a bit of a side-line to them. Shake was a product they I thought was always going to get a lot of support and development and then Apple discontinued it and sold the source code to companies that wanted it (strictly for internal use, of course).

In short: the way I see the film and broadcast industry is that everything technological is in a constant state of ‘beta’ – everything is being refined, re-developed, features added, features removed, etc. That’s the nature of the business. Unless you really want to go back to editing directly on film, hand-cranked cameras and explosive film stock – deal with it.

Gentlemen Broncos (Netflix Canada) was absolutely fantastically batshit insane. It tells of a teenager writer (Benjamin Purvis) who attends a writer’s workshop (Cletus Fest) where renowned sci-fi author, Ronald Chevalier (played by Flight of the Conchord’s Jermaine Clement), is giving a workshop on creative writing. As part of the workshop, Chevalier is offering a competition in which the winner will have their work published in limited quantities. So Purvis enters his latest work, a sci-fi called Yeast Wars, which depicts the fictional exploits of Bronco, a Yeast Lord who has had his testicles removed in the name of science so that the evil guys can clone him and use his clones against him and his people over the production of yeast. He spends much of the time trying to re-attach his testicles and fight the various animals (mainly deer and does) that have been kitted out with various weapons. Oh, and they can fly.

We discover that Chevalier’s latest work is a load of old tripe and is subsequently rejected by his publisher. He comes across the Yeast Wars manuscript and decides to change a few character names (Bronco becomes Brutus) and delivers it to his publisher, who loves it. Not only has Bronco’s name changed, but his character transforms from a muscular bearded gruff-voiced man into a highly effeminate grotesque caricature that wouldn’t look out of place in a Village People tribute band line-up.

All the while this is happening, two teenage friends of Purvis ALSO love Yeast Wars. As they run their own small-town “movie studio” they want to adapt it into a film. They offer him a $500 cheque, which he accepts and gives them the rights to make a movie from his work. Unfortunately he discovers that they have made significant changes to the story. What’s worse is that the $500 cheque has been post-dated and can’t be cashed in for an entire year. Purvis still attends the premiere at the local cinema and storms off after seeing how terrible the film is. It’s at this point he discovers that Chevalier’s new book is a complete rip-off of his Yeast Wars.

What’s interesting about Gentlemen Broncos is that is has one of the lowest scores on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics HATE it. But there is plenty to enjoy – the Yeast Wars story is superbly re-enacted with surreal visual effects and Sam Rockwell is absolutely on top form as both Bronco/Brutus, the relationship between Purvis and his rather off-the-wall mother, Halley Feiffer and Héctor Jiménez as Tabatha and Lonnie, the two friends who adapt Yeast Wars as a film, and well, everything about this film is madder than a box of frogs.

Gentlemen Broncos is as far off mainstream as you can get, and I love it for it. This is most definitely a cult film and not everybody is going to love it. But the film is charming, hysterically funny, and is a bit of a love letter to writers everywhere – regardless of age or whether you’re a professional or not.

As for Gulliver’s Travels (Netflix Canada), this Jack Black vehicle is an abomination onto Jonathan Swift’s novel. It has a big cast – mainly British – Chris O’Dowd, Billy Connelly, Catherine Tate, James Cordon, etc. yet none of them are used to their full potential and everybody seems to be rolling out their lines like robots. The visual effects are reasonable, but ultimately 99% of the time the film is Jack Black being Jack Black and is too man-childish to be of merit. This is a shame because Jack Black has done some great films – Be Kind Rewind, for example. But this – this is plain unpleasant.

Robocop (Netflix UK). Even now, this film still stands the test of time. I remember this being one of the very first 18 rated films I owned on VHS. I had to get my mum to buy it! Even if Phil Tippet’s ED-209 stop animation seems a little clunky these days, it’s still very impressive to watch. Rob Bottins work on the Robosuit and make-up effects is fantastic. A great film, and I can never get bored re-watching it.

Truly, I’d challenge anyone to spot the difference – literally 3 shots are 1 or 2 seconds shorter and 2 audio stings turned down To clarify, not a single shot different or missing & the rumours don’t accurately represent the situation, so no need for distress!

So essentially we are getting the movie they intended to made – and according to a forum poster on IMDb message baords, the director stated that the audio stings were turned down purely to avoid being distracted by what is going on visually.

So there you have it. I’m just annoyed that this whole BBFC thing got out of hand.

Believe me, this is better than some of the posters released for this film..

Well, now I’ve discovered that Jane Goldman’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s gothic horror (so no, not a prequel or sequel to the Gene Wilder movie) The Woman in Black has been given a 12A instead of the expected 15 rating due to particular content that the American MPAA seem to be okay with, but the BBFC aren’t – I don’t think I’ll be seeing this in the cinema as I smell the opportunity for the film company to release a 15-rated or even an unrated version of the film after the theatrical release window has expired.

So that means I could then watch the film – with all 6 seconds (yes, I know) intact – in the comfort of my own home. Yet I would dearly love to see this in the best possible place to watch a film – a cinema. So unless the film company then decides to re-release the film back in the cinemas with it’s original 15 rating I’ve just have to lump any extras in the comfort of my home, albeit with a much smaller screen and stereo sound system.

Of course having a 12A cert means that you’re going to get more bums on seats during the theatrical release. But for those of us that appreciate a higher rating – perhaps if only to filter out the less mature members of the cinema going public – then we’re screwed. 6 seconds is nothing to worry about, but it’s the fact that the film company did not contest or allow for the higher rating when confronted with the BBFC. Profits before artistic merit.

I know making films isn’t cheap, but COME ON. Treat your audience with some respect for God’s sake. Just because Daniel-sodding-Radcliffe is in this doesn’t automatically entitle you to cash in on the Harry Potter franchise, reduce the certificate to get more screaming girls in, and then count all the money at the expense of treating ALL the audience like rabid Potter fans.

This is why I won’t see this film – Hammer seem to lack any spine. For a horror company that’s screamingly awful.

First up, all three Robocop films from Netflix UK. I haven’t seen Robocops 1, 2 or 3 for *years* and the last time I did was the Criterion DVD release of the first film (with extended cut which is even more bloody and violent than the theatrical release!). A damn shame Criterion didn’t release many of their titles over here in the UK in region 2 format as they produced excellent value-for-money discs.

I may then watch Starship Troopers. Again, haven’t seen it in years, but still a good film.

Then I’m hoping across the pond to Montreal where I’ve got Gentlemen Broncos to watch from Netflix Canada:

This is one bonkers movie, but it appeals to me strangely enough. It’s from the husband and wife team that brought us the excellent Napoleon Dynamite, so it should be good.

Then I’ll leap across the Canadian border to the US where I’ll watch Trollhunter through Netflix US.

And if there is any more time left, I’ll stay in the US to continue watching Farscape series 1.

Hide My Ass! works spectacularly well with Netflix US, and it’s also opened up Netflix Canada which in some cases has even better content availability than the US. So I can now access Netlix UK, US and Canada, I have an unbelievably good selection of films and television programs that will last me years to

But don’t think simply bypassing regionalisation makes me a greedy so-and-so. As somebody who happily spends money on regularly visiting the cinema, buying Blu-Rays, renting through iTunes, etc. much of the availability now allows me to sample the non-HD content of TV shows and films. I’m now VERY tempted to buy the Blu-Ray boxset of Farscape thanks to me watching it on Netflix US. The same has to be said of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I can only imagine how good things look having been remastered. I could happily re-watch Farscape series 1 over and over again and not be bored – I love that show. What I really like about Netflix is that it offers no extras, no commentaries, nothing. If you want those – you buy the DVD or Blu-Ray (if available). It’s a great way of being entertained and acting a try-before-you buy in the same way that Spotify is a similar model for music (whether or not you’re on the free, £4.99 or £9.99 package) – there has been albums and tracks that I’ve bought regardless because I want to support the artist/label as well as having a permanent copy of the music. Even with the purchase music/movies/TV shows, I can still use Netflix on devices and my computer as and when the whim takes me (rather than having to switch on the fixed TV and insert a Blu-Ray).

Interestingly looking at the Netflix blog about the Canadian launch, many people lambasted Netflix for having an initial poor catalogue. Yet from my PoV, the catalogue the Canadians have now is really rather good – nothing to complain about at all. If the UK service goes the same way as Canada, we Brits will be able to access – without VPNs or physically travelling to these places – a similarly excellent range of content within a few months.

In the mean time: using a VPN is a good halfway house. It’s not ideal and the rights holders might not like it too much, but if it helps Netflix UK to actually determine who is accessing which content from abroad – perhaps this might help prioritise what they’ll negotiate next to add to the UK catalogue. At the very least the stats generated from this would make for interesting reading.

I tried to delete my Hotmail account and then log back into Windows Live, but alas, logging back into Windows Live then reactivates bloody Hotmail. So I changed the password to something very complex and then nuked my entire Windows Live account. I’ve just gone on to make sure the password that was used with Live and that I’ve used with other public services, has now been changed accordingly – just in case those involved in the compromised try anything else.

But it highlights the problem (other than I had been using a password that was clearly too weak) that these mega profile accounts that hold social networking, email, web albums, etc. etc. are a little too insecure if you’re protecting it with a single password.

I like Google and Google Apps in that they have a very good two-factor authentication scheme that I’ve been using for many months without any issues at all. Even (and this would be difficult) if my password had been compromised you’d still need token based authentication to be able to proceed onto the various Google services where my data is stored. I couldn’t see any such scheme for Windows Live or Hotmail.

Going back to Google for a second, I’m a little concerned that Postini will happily vouch for drake.org.uk even though I don’t send through Postini servers. Google includes the IP addresses of the Postini SMTP farm as part of their SPF record and I don’t believe this is a good idea. Please keep Postini’s SMTP servers away from google.com’s SPF records please, Google.

Most post-production companies I’ve dealt with over the years have used the likes of FTP servers (their own, their clients’ or some other third party service), Dropbox-like servies and even MegaUpload-like services to transfer LEGITIMATE content (dailies, notes, previews, pre-viz, whatever) between themselves. I’ve also encountered badly configured FTP servers which may – if picked up by rogue elements – could be utilised to store illegal content (in the real early days when film companies started using the internet – most FTP servers shipped with the anonymous upload facility on – you just had to find a server that supports anonymous uploads AND downloads and Bob’s your uncle – instant piracy).

I recall when I was working at MPC that we had our FTP set-up to use anonymous access (because when you had a million and one different advertising agencies and their clients uploading assets, etc.) it was a PITA having to assign each and every client a username and password. Indeed, I set-up a system that would do this, but everybody found it complicated – people forgot the credentials and nobody liked it (tough shit, but ultimately they’re paying the moolah and it’s our job to make it easy for them).

The way it worked was thus: the FTP server was configured to allow anonymous uploads but ONLY to specific (hidden) directories, the path of which would be sent to the client via email. This prevented regular anonymous users from attempting to upload tons of pirated movies, music, etc. and let the legitimate folk do their stuff. Similarly nobody outside of MPC could browse or view the contents of the anonymous FTP account, so client data was kept confidential. If you connected anonymously via FTP without a specific path, you’d see nothing and would be able to do nothing.

It wasn’t perfect, I grant you, and I’d love to have had a full username/password system and even deploy full SCP/SFTP access to boot – but many of these advertising agencies didn’t have a bloody clue how to handle FTP or SFTP and anything more complicated than that would have been a full time job in itself. For main film productions, VPNs and much tighter ACLs allowed us greater control of how data moved back and forth between clients.

All I can say is that the FBI and the entertainment companies concerned had better have a water-tight burden of proof that Megaupload and it’s owners have been engaging in known illegal activity (to the point of absolutely condoning piracy) otherwise this could seriously backfire – making the public even more wary about just how much do the entertainment companies understand technology. The language used in law within these cases looks to be far too broad and may well have serious implications for all – and even the entertainment companies themselves that operate file sharing between themselves and third party outsourcing (namely post-production/VFX, marketing companies, distributors, etc. etc).

How does the law deal with companies or even individuals accidentally leave “anonymous” access which may result in illegal content being hosted and served from their servers? The law needs to deal with that situation. While most distributions of FTP, SFTP and other file serving software ships with a relatively secure default configuration that should prevent the situation I describe above, it only takes somebody not to have read the manual or understand how the software works to chimp it up spectacularly. Or even worse – what if there is a major bug in the file server that would allow undesirable folk to exploit the server to upload/download whatever they wanted?

From my PoV, most film studios (and that extends to TV broadcasters, independent production companies and advertising agencies) have barely come around to using non-explosive film stock. Anything more complicated and they just throw up their hands, hitch up their skirt, or turn around on the spot flapping their arms proclaiming that the sky is about to fall on their heads. I’d also imagine that most film studio and record label bosses barely understand how to use email – they just get their PAs to do it – and possibly even get them to load DVDs and Blu-Rays into their players. I have yet to encounter anybody above middle management in these companies that are truly tech savvy.

As other people have pointed out, it kind of proves the point that SOPA and it’s ilk aren’t needed given how fast this action has been brought – but I have to ask what have the courts been presented to get the arrest warrants issued? What courts issued them, and who exactly were involved and how well versed are they in technology and it’s use?

Either way I’m not impressed and will be following this situation with great interest and it’s impact could well affect how other major file sharing services operate (and I’m looking at Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs – ANYTHING where somebody can upload files and share them publicly or even privately).