R-Views

Lying by Sam Harris

2012-01-27T23:11:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A philosophical discussion on lying and its damaging repercussions.

Review:

Like Christopher Hitchens’ The Enemy, Sam Harris’ Lying is a $2 Kindle Single. This means it’s an essay, far from book length, that's written by the fellow horseman of the anti apocalypse; who cares if neither’s subject matter has much to do with the analysis of religion that won both authors much of their acclaim? The Kindle Single format is not bad at all, offering me quality time out from the lengthy book I’m currently reading (a Christopher Hitchens book, of course).

Harris’ essay starts with his conclusion. Lying, he argues, is always bad and at least in all the cases he looked at it should have always been avoided. He then moves on to explain: he defines what lying is (in a meaningful, non dictionary like manner), and then he sets out to explore different forms of lying. By analysing the thinking behind the lies and the repercussions of these lies, he clearly points out lying’s damaging effects on both liar and victim. Even white lies, where we lie because we think the person lied to will benefit, get knocked by Harris’ hammer. Harris' conclusion is simple: the person who tells no lies lives a happier life, one that is unburdened by the weight of lies.

Generally speaking, Harris and I are in agreement. The life of a truthful person is the easier life, one of the main reasons why I aspire for truthfulness and transparency: I’m a lazy person at heart, a person who openly asks others not to share secrets with him because of not wanting that extra load to carry. It is exactly because of my general agreement with Harris that I have a problem with his all encompassing conclusion that lying is always bad.

Take my house rental dilemma (discussed here) as an example: looking for a place to rent, should I lie and say I am looking to rent a place for a year when I know fully well that I only need it for six months? By lying I know that I make myself an attractive renter to landlords; I also know I don’t stand much of a chance of getting a nice place to live at otherwise, if I was to tell the truth. So what should I do – be truthful and live in a dump for six months, or lie and be fully willing to pay the financial consequences of the lie? After all, I won’t be the first to ever break their leasing agreement; we call this experience of ours life because, amongst others, it’s ever changing. Circumstances change and so do leasing agreements; in the grand scheme of things lies may not matter that much.

I will therefore argue, based on Harris’ own arguments from The Moral Landscape, that there can be no absolute judgement on lying. The real question is the maximization of well being, which – as with the case of my house rental dilemma – could, in one way or another, be better served by a lie. Unlikely, yet possible. Enough to make me doubt Harris' conclusion as I admire his style of arguing.

Overall: Well written and thought provoking, Lying is well worth its admission price and its reader’s time. At 4 out of 5 stars, it leaves me waiting in anticipation for Harris’ upcoming [full length] book, Free Will.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

2012-01-25T23:25:00.003+11:00

Lowdown: Three useless guys become involved in a time travel conundrum.

Review:

The connection between me and 2009’s Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (let’s call if FAQ from now on, shall we?) is easy to draw: Chris O’Dowd, star of my favorite The IT Crowd, also stars in this small time British (Irish?) production.

FAQ features O’Dowd as a useless sci-fi geek, out of his theme park job because he's scaring the kids. Together with two similarly useless mates of his they go for drinks at the pub, where things go crazy when he goes to the bar get some drinks: there he meets a beautiful girl that obviously admires him, and is probably the first to do so. She also tells him she comes from the future, which makes the whole admiration thing that much more plausible. When one of the other friends goes to the toilet he returns to find everyone dead, but also sees enough evidence to note there is something very wrong with the flow of time. Eventually the gang of three regroups, and between trips to the toilet they wage their way through this time confusion to sort things out. Maybe.

Clearly, between its subject matter and its heroes, FAQ is a geek’s film. However, that does automatically mean FAQ is a good geek’s film; not at all. Personally, I have found it more boring than amusing. Hard to believe O’Dowd’s comic talents can be so poorly wasted.
Where FAQ totally lost me, though, was the point I realized the film would never even try to bother explaining what was going on. It seemed happy to settle with taking the charade further and further, but the lack of tying things down made the whole affair feel more like a little child's lie than a film I would want to watch. From then on I couldn’t really take it anymore, and from a potentially entertaining film that failed to entertain me thus far FAQ turned into a proper bore.

Overall: I felt like Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel was working at a level that is beneath me. 1 out of 5 stars.

Hereafter

2012-01-24T23:26:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A woman, a man and a child from three different countries are united by the touch of death.

Review:

Given that Clint Eastwood is probably my favorite director I certainly took my time to watch his Hereafter. That is probably the result of a somewhat lukewarm reception and lack of clarity on what this film is about; in retrospect, from this side of watching the film, I can understand why.

Hereafter is one of those stories where we watch several different threads, and as we jump from one to the other we know fully well they are bound to collide, eventually, and probably in some unexpected manner. In Hereafter's particular case we follow three different people/threads.

First we meet the famous French journalist Marie (Cécile De France). Her exotic beach holiday quickly turns sour when a tsunami hits the shores; she does her best, but the debris get her. Eventually she regains consciousness, but not before her aiders give up on her dead body. Now she is awake, but she is a different person.

Moving on, we meet George (Matt Damon) from San Francisco, a medium fully capable of talking to the dead. For real! He think his gift is a curse and avoids it by working hard at a factory and seeking human company at cooking lessons. That’s where he meets the new to town Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is there for similar reasons. However, George’s inability to avoid touching people without seeing their related dead blocks him from any meaningful relationship.

Last we have two London twin children whose single mother is a drug addict. They are resourceful in protecting their mother and covering her up from the authorities, but one thing leads to another and one of the twins gets run over. The remaining one feels compelled to access his now dead brother so he can continue guiding him through life the way he always did.

What transpires from this point onwards is a touching tale, told in the typically Eastwood-ian relaxed and considered style. The acting of all leads is great, which adds a lot to the storytelling, with cameos from the likes of Derek Jacobi making things even better. Eastwood's management of the film's international aspects, such as multiple languages, is probably the best I've ever seen. All in all, one can argue Hereafter, through its dealings with the world of the dead, is a science fiction / fantasy film with a very human story concerning the longing for an understanding soul and the human touch.

Alas, there is an elephant in the room, and that mammoth is to do with Hereafter’s treatment of the concept of death and what lies behind it. I can understand a film that invents life after death and uses it to enhance its story; that’s a typical fantasy element. However, when the film keeps on insisting that there is proof for life after death, and that the world of science is actively trying to subdue the proof in some sort of a conspiracy, Hereafter crosses a very definitive border into the land of bullshit. Again, one can argue that everything’s fair in the land of fantasy storytelling, to which I will answer back that Hereafter clearly tries to pass as a regular drama and uses arguments that many if not most of the population (but no one with a bit of science in their blood) would unashamedly regard as authentic and real. For me it was just a bridge too far, and with all the sympathy I felt for the actors I could not truly relate to Hereafter.

I can only speculate on whether Eastwood choice of making this film has something to do with his advanced age. I’m troubled by this proposition, though, because I fully wish and expect many more films to come out of Eastwood’s hands. Perhaps Hereafter is not his best film ever, but do I really want to see him making the same film again and again?

Interesting scene: The tsunami at the beginning of Hereafter is interesting. I believe this is the first time I see a complicated effects shot involving massive CGI on a Clint Eastwood film. In typical Eastwood fashion the scene is exquisitely directed: on one hand there is the general chaos all around, on the other we are fully capable of focusing on Marie’s personal struggle to survive the calamity.

Technical assessment: Eastwood’s films never achieve more than average production value qualities, and this Blu-ray is no exception.

Overall: As touching as the tale is and as sympathetic as I am to its characters, I am finding it hard to endorse Hereafter. With that in mind I'll settle for 3 out of 5 stars.

The Muppets

2012-01-19T23:51:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: After years of disbandment, friends and Muppets organize a show to save the Muppet Studios.

Review:

Ours is a very Muppet friendly house. You can say all three members grew up on the Muppets: I remember watching the show in black & white on Friday afternoons, a boy still unable to read the subtitles or understand the English but a very amused boy nevertheless (oh, the days of having a single TV channel!); my wife has similar childhood stories, albeit with more channels and full listening comprehension; and my four year old son is a fan of the series we’ve been introducing him too. He doesn’t care whether the episodes he’s watching are more than thirty years old; Mahna Mahna is till hilariously funny. (Anecdote: Mahna Mahna is the first Muppet performance on the very first Muppets episode.)

Thus when The Muppets, the first Muppet film to hit the cinema in decades, finally landed in Australia some two months after its release in the USA (and then they dare complain about piracy), we made our way to the cinema. Not because we expected much – none of the Muppets movies have been particularly good – but because it promised fun for all of us. In retrospect, the results were exactly the way we've anticipated them.

We follow two brothers living in somewhere USA, a town that seems stuck in the fifties: Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter – who is a Muppet (finally, we know how they’re created!). Life can be hard, with Walter being a Muppet in a society of humans, but Gary stands by his side. When Gary goes for a tour of California with his wedding anxious girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) he feels compelled to take Walter with him so the latter can visit his sacred temple: the Muppet Studios.

Alas, when they arrive at the shrine they discover it to be a deserted dump. Worse, Walter eavesdrops on this rich millionaire (Chris Cooper) that plots to take control over the studios and turn them into an oil field. What can be done about it? Well, what do you think - is there anything else that can reconvene the Muppets after so many long years for a show to collect the money they need to keep hold of their theater? There are hurdles on the way, though. Like reluctant Muppets, not to mention the Muppets’ deadly rivals – the Moopets.

Let’s make two things clear: (a) plot is not The Muppets’ strongest point and (b) The Muppets is a musical, which means that characters burst into song all too often. Generally speaking, I have a problem with musicals but I don't have a problem with Muppets' musical performances because they're so funny and original. Sadly, The Muppets' musicals expose what is probably the biggest problem with the film: there is not enough Muppets stuff in it; too much of it is to do with either the human characters or that new Muppet, Walter. My gripe: as a veteran Muppet fan I have absolutely no emotional attachment to this Walter character!
Not that the human character are devoid of issues. Despite the good acting talent at hand, acting is not exactly at Oscar winning levels. Worse, Segel is not exactly Fred Astaire. And Amy Adams? In typical Hollywood fashion, her character is only interested in getting married. Because everyone knows a woman is no good without a husband by her side! Since when did such conservative values go together with the anarchic Muppets? Probably since Disney took over the joint.

The human side of the equation is not all bad. Cooper is a lovely baddie, and his musical number is entertaining purely for the surprise factor. Numerous cameos spread throughout the film add some extra laughs (I liked Emily Blunt's because I like Emily Blunt, but a David Grohl playing Animal's Moopet counterpart wins top spot); on the other hand, the cameos' value is nothing but anecdotal. They don't add anything to the film, especially not for the kids that have no idea they're witnessing a celebrity at work.

Add all the marketing attitudes, musical numbers and relative lack of Muppet action - most characters are never developed behind the two seconds used to introduce them - and you get an entertaining yet tedious film that's probably too long for its own good.

Best scene:

As much as I detest musicals, I have to hand it to “Am I a Man or Am I a Muppet”. First, because the song is so silly it’s incredibly catchy, and second because of the casting of Sheldon Cooper (or rather, Jim Parsons) to play Walter’s human alter ego. Still, as good as the movie song’s performance is, its best performance ever has to be my son’s while having a shower.

Another worthy contender to the crown is a Muppet barbershop quartet rendition of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. Unlike Man or Muppet, which is a normal song performed normally for all intents and purposes, this one is a proper Muppet performance.
Extra feature:
We were surprised to see a Pixar short prior to The Muppets starting. I guess Disney is making the most of owning Pixar nowadays. The short was another Toy Story tale, this time about abandoned kids' meals toys. Its problem is that by now Toy Story has set the bar pretty high, but the recent inflation in Toy Story shorts (there was one with Cars 2, too) feels like it's chipping the brand.

Technical assessment:

Given how rare it is for us to visit the cinema I will spend a couple of sentences on the experience. First, the sheer size of the cinema screen does make for a different experience than home viewing; what I don’t understand is why the cinema feels justified in charging us $2 extra per ticket simply because we watched the film on a large (aka "max") cinema screen. Personally, I would refer to what we’ve seen the film projected on as a "normal cinema screen"; those small cubicle like cinemas at the multiplex are not “normal” cinemas, they’re blasphemy.

Second, it was amusing to see how poorly calibrated cinema sound is. It was all too easy, and actually quite distracting, for me to be able to identify exactly which speaker each bit of sound came from. That’s not surround sound, that’s sound coming in from a disarray of speakers.

Overall:

The Muppets is fun and its obvious it was made with love. However, it has too many issues to receive proper commendation. I’m giving it 2.5 out of 5 stars, but I will add that we will probably end up with the DVD/Blu-ray in our collection due to its compatibility with the household's four year old.

Personally, I would say there is much more fun to be had from watching any of the good old Muppets episodes than watching this film. Not because the film is so bad but rather because the series was just so exceptionally good! Given the abundance of episodes there really is no need to ruin the vintage taste other than the introduction of the Muppets to younger audiences.

I Am Number Four

2012-01-18T14:14:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: An alien with superhero abilities who is masquerading as a human teen hides from international assassins at an average American high school.

Review:

Teenage films feel like they’ve always been there. However, through successes like Twilight, Hollywood’s bean counters seemed to have realized there is a lot of money to be made out of producing contents aimed at dealing directly with teenagers’ anxieties (rather than, say, producing the gross comedies for teens I grew up with). I Am Number Four is a fine example for such a film, but it is also an example for the main problem besetting films made mostly by the bean counting / marketing departments: poor quality.

I Am Number Four pulls the science fiction card on the theme (again). Aliens have landed on earth, and they are goodie refugees escaping their home planet from a race of other, vicious, aliens. Ten of them goodies have superpowers that will develop as they mature, and in the mean time they have their individual guardians looking after them as they spread across the globe. However, they need to be careful: even upon earth they are being hunted by those evil aliens; plus the fact that by having supernatural abilities, like lighting up, they are rather conspicuous to the humans of earth (even if, for all other intents and purposes, they appear and behave human). Our dear aliens address this problem by moving around all the time.

Number Four (Alex Pettyfer), the film's alien of choice, embarks on such a move as the film starts. Defying his guardian’s instructions he decides to camouflage himself by going to school (what a silly idea!), where he immediately befriends a sexy girl, feels sympathy for a geek that’s being harassed by the cool guys, and develops a love/hate relationship with this same cool gang. We basically have ourselves the regular teenager themes here, as seen from the male point of view: teenage love, bullying and acceptance into social circles. However, in the case of I Am Number Four things are all supernaturally magnified by fantastic themes: the hero’s superhero abilities, the baddies tracking him down, and a mysterious blonde chick (Teresa Palmer) that’s also tracking him down and has a fetish to fire and explosions (not to mention an Aussie accent). Given the movie does its best to render the baddies ugly, it is pretty clear where the blonde's allegiances lies.

And there's the rub with I Am Number Four. It is pretty entertaining, in a simple sort of way; but it is also quite predictable (zero rewards for guessing school is going to end up as the film's battlefield), riddled with clichés, and overfilled with stereotypes. Not to mention various things that don't make sense, like the hero's guardian use of a particularly pathetic looking short sword to defend his master with from baddies carrying full blown blasters. Perhaps once upon a time when teens would rarely watched films aimed directly at them films could get away with such trash, but in today's scene where kids start watching feature films at the age of three I Am Number Four can no longer get way with being labelled teen fodder.

Worst scene:

Number Four’s geeky friend tells him he always knew there are aliens amongst us. The reason? His father told him so and he grew to believe in it so much. And real teens are supposed to acquire their inspiration from bullshit arguments such as that?

Let me break it to you. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims out there that believe strongly in their prophet; there are also hundreds of millions of Christians out there that believe strongly in their prophet. Obviously, with all their strong beliefs, at least one of these groups has to be wrong! I would argue that both are wrong, but regardless – my point is that hundreds of millions of people with strong beliefs have to be wrong despite all of their believing.

Technical assessment: An average Blu-ray on the picture side sporting above average sound. Pity the sound is used to make the viewer jump in their seat all too often.

Overall: While mildly entertaining, there can be no doubt Number Four is trash. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Limitless

2012-01-16T22:49:00.004+11:00

Lowdown: A mysterious drug turns a failure of a person into a mega success, but also makes him very wanted by various all sorts.

Review:

What if a silver bullet to life has been found, and you’re given exclusive access to it? That is, more or less, the question behind Limitless. Only that in Limitless’ case, it’s not you that’s given the silver bullet but rather Eddie (Bradley Cooper).
Eddie’s a total failure: he managed to get a book contract but never managed writing a word; he lives at a dump with not much hope of paying the rent; and his beautiful girlfriend (Abbie Cornish, gradually making her presence knows at Hollywood) figures him out and dumps him.

By now one can already point some issues out with Limitless. Credibility wise, are we really expected to believe a first time author would have a contract before writing a word? And cliché wise, how come all movie heroes automatically get a ravishingly beautiful girlfriend even if they are total failures? And what’s wrong with an ordinary looking girlfriend in the first place? I’ll stop the rant under the assumption my point was made: Limitless is flawed at its core with the traditional plethora of Hollywood misconceptions.

On the positive side, Limitless greatly improves from that point onwards. Our hero meets a dodgy character from the past who gives him an alleged magic pill. Eddie’s a skeptic but he tries it still: immediately, he becomes much more aware of what’s around him. The pill has made him much, much smarter: he gets his way with the landlord, he plunges right into writing his book, etc etc. In short, from a failure he becomes a success. Yet again, though, Limitless suffers a mild reliability problem: we are told the pill works because it helps one uses the brain’s full potential, given that everyone “knows” we only use 20% if that potential in our daily lives. Bullshit alert: there is no way evolution would give us a brain and then let us use only 20% of it; we would either fall victim to those that use 21% or we would be wasting vast resources on something we never utilize.

But we’ll bite the bullet and return to our hero, Eddie, whose one off pill is starting to lose its effect. The pill was so good that Eddie goes off to get some more (naturally). When he arrives at his dodgy dealer’s place he finds him dead, or rather murdered; he finds the stash of magic pills before the police arrives.

Using the pills, Eddie’s life trajectory is suddenly pointing all the way up. Alas, the drug has side effects: physical ones, like those of any other drug, and less obvious ones too. Such as the fact him having the stash of drugs makes Eddie very wanted in the eyes of many others who seek similar powers. Thus start lethal games of cloaks and daggers between Eddie and the various power hungry people in his life (including a Robert De Niro), with lots of ups and downs for all. One rule of thumb prevails throughout: he (or she) who has the pill prevails.

Taken at face value, there is not much to Limitless other than being a thrilling ride with some sort of an imaginary nature to it. If anything, the film can be accused of having the exact same structure as Megamind, a kids’ film (both films start with their hero about to die off a fall, and then flashes back). However, this perceived shallowness could also be interpreted as Limitless’ main strength in the sense that it lets the viewer ponder on the applicability of its plot to the real world. And applicability there is!

First, pills such as Limitless’ do exist. For decades now, fighter pilots have been given pills to keep them alert for extra lengths of time at the cockpit. About two years ago Scientific American published an article on the merits of pills alleged to make students smart, pondering on the merits of taking these pills before tests. The problem posed by Limitless is therefore very real, and even though in the real world it wouldn’t be one person in possession of all the pills society would still have to contend with a world in which those that can afford it will suddenly turn into much better people than those that can’t. Now that would be something to riot about!

Expanding on the allegory here, one can argue Limitless is some sort of a tale on the “virtues” of capitalism (itself represented thoroughly in the film by De Niro and others). That is, the issues facing a dog eat dog world where those with the power are the only ones to truly make choices in life.

Problematic scene: Without blooping too much, Limitless’ ending found me somewhat disappointed (and not solely due to the horrendous hairstyle Copper adopts there). Given the alternate ending on the Blu-ray, it appears the filmmakers have grappled the matter, too. I will say this: Limitless, of all films, is crying out for a dark ending.

Technical assessment: The picture on this Blu-ray is a bit of a mixed bag. The constant alterations between an oversaturated world (when the hero’s on the drug) and a more monochromatic one (when he’s off) means that fidelity is not something one could look for here. Things are good on the sound side.

Overall: Always nice to watch a good science fiction film, and Limitless definitely qualifies. I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars, which means I have found another film worthy of a Hugo nomination this year.

Bridesmaids

2012-01-14T23:43:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A single woman going through a crisis triggered by her best friend’s wedding.

Review:

It’s funny how expectations can be deceiving, and Bridesmaids proved a fine example. Through all the reviews and snippets I’ve been exposed to, I have been led to believe Bridemaids is some sort of a vulgar comedy that mocks the whole institution of the wedding ceremony and does so from the female’s point of view. As it turns out, I was wrong: yes, Bridesmaids is all of the above, but it is mostly a film about a single woman in her thirties that’s struggling against social expectations (amplified and manifested through the wedding). The film’s journey sorts her out, more or less, and helps her realize what’s important in life (friends) and what’s less important (wedding ceremonies). By doing it all from the female point of view, instead of the male one that dominates the world of American cinema, Bridesmaids can be regarded as quite a revolutionary film by Hollywood’s standards.

Our hero is Annie (Kristen Wiig), to whom we’re introduced while she’s having sex with a fuck-buddy that doesn’t care much for her. We learn she used to run her own baking shop that went under due to the GFC; we learn she drives an old lemon; we learn she works at a dead end job; we learn she shares her apartment with two weird flatmates; and we learn her best friend since childhood, Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is soon to be married with our Annie nominated as the bridesmaids’ CEO (or best-woman, or whatever the term is).

At this point we’re introduced to the rest of the bridesmaids’ crew. These include the would be husband’s obese and weird sister, a friend who’s only ever had sex with her husband, another friend with kids who can’t tolerate parenthood anymore, and - most notably - Helen (Rose Byrne), the lonely wife of the husband to be’s boss. Helen’s got lots of money on her hands, no one to give her attention, and nothing to do with her time but compete for Lillian’s top spot against our Annie. As the war wages between the two, the already cracked ground breaks loose under Annie’s weight and her life takes a dive. Saving her will take a lot of initiative on her part, and a lot of effort from friends – including an unlikely highway patrol man, Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd of The IT Crowd’s fame).

Combine all of the above into the mix that is Bridesmaids and I would say the dish in your hands is a drama with comic elements that lacks [most of] the corny stuff that normally gets labelled under “romantic comedy”. Romance is not at the top of this film’s agenda but rather friendship, with males playing only a minor role to the dominant female characters. That, I guess, is exactly why Bridesmaids managed to successfully win the reputation it rightly acquired: it’s rare to see Hollywood treat issues besetting most Western females so thoroughly, even if it does so in its typical exaggerated manner. Perhaps that is why Bridesmaids sought comedy talent from overseas with its use of Rhodes as well as Matt Lucas (of Little Britain fame) for key supporting roles.

Best scene: In one of the pre-wedding gathering events that are held by American wedding traditions, Helen and Annie try to outdo one another and show just how they are Lillian’s bestest friend ever by repeatedly trying to surpass each other’s speech. The scene’s simply hilarious, and more sophisticatedly so than the subsequent tennis match between the two characters that turns into the two trying to kill each other with high velocity balls.

Technical assessment:

Whoever it was that designed the menu system on Bridesmaids’ Blu-ray should be shot. After we finished watching the film we went to the extras menu, where we discovered the existence of a longer (10 extra minutes) unrated version of the film. Why weren’t we told about it before watching the cinematic version? No one looks at the extras menu before they watch the film for fear of spoilers; the menu design should have taken that into account.

Other than that, this is an average quality Blu-ray. The use of sound is particularly mundane.

Overall:

I’ll be harsh and give Bridesmaids 3 out of 5 stars for being just a nice comedy.

However, I am seriously bothered by whether the film’s uniqueness should have earned it an extra half star; the main reason I didn’t give it that bonus is that Bridesmaids is only unique in the context of mainstream American cinema; it is not unique in the context of cinema as a whole. That is to say, Bridesmaids appears good just because most of the stuff coming from Hollywood’s direction is so bad.

Oranges and Sunshine

2012-01-12T23:50:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A social worker is amazed to discover children were abducted by the English state and sent off to Australia.

Review:

It’s the nineteen eighties. A British social worker from Nottingham, Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson) coincidentally stumbles upon two similar stories. One is of an Australian woman claiming to be English but forcibly abducted to Australia as a child. The other has to do with a familiar woman who faintly remembers having a brother when she was a little child, and has reasons to believe that brother has been sent to Australia. Could this really be a coincidence?

Humphreys starts investigating the matter, and the more investigating she does the more people with similar life stories she identifies: English people who were forcibly detached from their families as children and “exported” to Australia, where they were treated as slave labor for the institutions raising them. The numbers are astounding; there is no way so many kids could go through that fate without some governmental approval. But if that is the case, how come no one heard of this scheme?

Humphreys finds her commitment levels to the cause constantly rising, and as they do they have an effect on her person and family. In parallel, she starts identifying abductees and uniting them with loved ones. The simple drama behind the film begs the question how far she can. Is she in for the long ride?

The scariest thing about Oranges and Sunshine is that its story is entirely true. It is the tale of what is now known in Australia as that of the Forgotten Children: between the end of the Second World War and 1970, tens of thousands of children were exported from England to Australia (as well as other Commonwealth countries). On the UK side of things, these were children from “problematic” backgrounds, such as those born outside of wedlock. Against their will, and usually against the will of their families who were left in the dark, these children were then exported to an Australia that welcomed them as positive contribution to the White Australia agenda. Typically, the kids would be raised at church related institutions, where in effect they would be used as slave labor and where they’d often be raped in that typical style the church is so good at (and so good at getting out of).

Oranges and Sunshine, a film named after the promises made to these kids in order to entice them to board the ships that would take them to where the rest of their now desolate childhoods would be spent, attempts to portray to its viewers just what this Forgotten Children phenomenon is all about. It does so in a rather subtle manner through the invocation of a few true personal stories: the social worker that uncovered the whole thing to the public (Humphreys), as well as two victims brilliantly portrayed by Hugo Weaving and David Wenham.

If you ask me, the greatest compliment I can bestow on Oranges and Sunshine has to do with the way it shows us just how badly the entities we trust the most can fail us. Most of us tend to regard our own governments as trustworthy: we are the good side, it’s the others that do bad things. Well, Oranges and Sunshine comes in to tell us that even the goodie governments of the UK and Australia can commit atrocities, and not just upon the citizens of remote countries like Vietnam or Iraq. It's not only countries whose population happens to look slightly different to “us” that suffer: no, we can do the worst things ever to our very own. And if that is the case, then surely we can do unjustifiably bad things to those slightly different to us, can we? The lesson is simple: we need to check our governments and check our corporations. We need to vote for the transparent politician, not the one that only promises. And we need a society with healthy media. And don't get me started about the church!

Under such light, Oranges and Sunshine is more than a riveting true story about great injustices performed by supposedly advanced Western countries, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and taking place during the lifetime of many reading this review. Oranges and Sunshine is a lesson in what good citizenship should mean: good citizenship means the ability to look your country and institutions in the eye and call things the way they are, even if those things disturb some holy grails.

Best scene: While walking along a beach, Weaving breaks down before Humphreys and shares some stories about his identity deprived childhood. A marvellous display of fine acting helps communicate this important story.

Technical assessment: Not that bad a DVD, but not one you’d be using to test your speakers and TV with.

Overall: Oranges and Sunshine should be integrated into the school curriculum of all the countries involved. 4 out of 5 stars.

Gone with the Wind

2012-01-11T23:05:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A southern love triangle set around the American civil war.

Review:

One of the more amusing feuds I have had with my mother had to do with which of the two is the best film ever. To this young child, Star Wars looked the undeniable winner; my mother always went with 1939’s Gone with the Wind. Silly choice, if you ask me: how can a love story even begin to compare with death stars?

Oddly enough for a movie fan such as yours truly, who also happens to be the son of my mother, I never watched Gone with the Wind till last week (at least not in full). Having watched it I can rest assured now that my childhood preferences were, indeed, valid: Gone with the Wind is a classic for historical reasons, but Star Wars beats the hell out of it.

The story takes place at America’s south, specifically in Georgia, at around the time of the American Civil War. Our hero is Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Lee), the spoiled daughter of a plantation owner from Ireland. Scarlett is admired by all the men around her, but she truly covets a guy who happens to be committed to another woman. Scarlett will stop at nothing to be with "her" man, including marrying other men altogether. In between that and the war, Scarlett gets exposed to the flamboyant Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a sort of a playboy whose allegiances are vague but who, nevertheless, is the only one who recognizes Scarlett for the smart manipulator she really is. The rest of this overly long (close to four hours) film is the tale of the love triangle between Scarlett, the guy she really loves, and Rhett. The tale is made more interesting, of course, by the war setting and the character building exercise it proves to be.

So no, I didn’t like Gone with the Wind. Obviously, I found it too long, even if the story is conveniently divided into two halves (before and after the war) and even if we watched each half on a different seating. Scarlett’s annoying character is a major problem, too – she is far too annoying to sympathise or identify with, which left me un-associated with any of the characters for the whole movie. There is also the rather annoying way blacks are treated by the film as comic relief material; then again, at the time Gone with the Wind was made racism was more than politically correct, it was politically endorsed.

Most of all, though, I was annoyed with the over-acting rampant in Gone with the Wind. None of the characters act naturally; they all behave as if they’re playing at the theater all the time, or even worse. It made Gone with the Wind Go on my Nerves: people just don’t talk like that to one another. I guess one can therefore argue that through Gone with the Wind we are able to see just how far the art of movie making has advanced since. Or did it, really, given the artificial taste most contemporary Hollywood films leave in my mouth?

Best scenes: Being that Gone with the Wind is as classic as any movie can ever aspire to be, it is full of quotes one keeps on hearing everywhere. My favorite would have to be Rhett’s “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”, because it encapsulates exactly what I felt about the movie after watching it for around four hours. Second place goes for the immediately following “After all... tomorrow is another day” by Scarlett, because it concludes the film (by which time I was perfectly able to forgive the rather detached manner in which this statement was made: it doesn't have much to do with the feel of the film that preceded it).

Overall: Worth watching to understand what the fuss is all about; however, I do advise preparing for a disappointment. 2 out of 5 stars.

The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan

2012-01-09T00:23:00.000+11:00

Lowdown: The further adventures of the boys as their kingdom faces an evil invasion.

Review:

The Burning Bridge is the second book in the Ranger’s Apprentice young adult fantasy series. That is, it is the sequel of The Ruins of Gorlan. By now the series includes 11 books with more to come, which sort of tells you what you can expect out of each of its title: a series of adventures and an open ending that leaves the ground fresh for the next sequel.

The Burning Bridge has our hero apprentice, Will, and his master Halt discovering the plans for an invasion to their medieval like kingdom. Through that intelligence the army prepares for the coming attack, while Will is sent in the company of some young colleagues to a side mission of peace. Things go wrong there, though, and in a totally expected manner Will finds out the true secret behind the pending invasion; the question is, will he and his younger colleagues be able to do enough in time?

There can be no denying The Burning Bridge is pulp fiction, a cheap tale of fantasy aimed to entertain but not much else. While Ruins of Gorlan had some good motifs to appeal to a growing up teen looking for their place in the world and shaping their identity, The Burning Bridge feels empty in comparison. It is a tale well told, with multiple narratives handled in parallel to heighten the suspension, but it is a simple swords and sorcery like tale; nothing more and nothing less. I used to consume a lot of these books as a young adult myself, and I’ve enjoyed The Burning Bridge as entertaining easy reading. I can clearly see its appeal.

One thing I did not like about The Burning Bridge are the things it takes for granted. The goodies’ society it portrays is not a democracy; it’s a monarchy. However, with each of the ruling class characters described as essentially flawless in character, the book can easily create the wrong impression with its younger readers as to the virtues of dictatorships. Another thing that’s taken for granted by the goodies is the need to invest in an army and to always defend one’s land, even at times of peace; those that don’t pay a price for their “negligence” in The Burning Bridge. To put it another way, The Burning Bridge seems to have been written by the same school of thought that sees the Aussie taxpayer paying billions for a new fleet of submarines regardless of justification as a positive thing. Again, this is not the example I would like set before young adults: more than anyone else, young adults should be versed on the ways of questioning things older folk take for granted.

Another problem with The Burning Bridge is its ending, which – as expected – leaves the door wide open for a sequel and leaves its reader without the level of closure most of us expect from our books. I have been known to inflict ratings punishments on books that do this to me (see here and here for examples), and The Burning Bridge is no exception. However, The Burning Bridge is definitely better than the two cited examples in the sense that it has an ending in the first place. Which is to say there are different closure levels for a book, and The Burning Bridge just, but just, falls on the side I consider acceptable.

Overall: Trashy, but entertainingly so. With 2.5 out of 5 stars, I expect to read its sequel the next time I’m in the mood for very easy reading.

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

2012-01-06T23:24:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: Instructions and inspiration to a would be dissident.

Review:

It’s hard for anyone’s death to bring tears to my eyes, let alone a person I have never met and a person who never heard of me. But the loss of Christopher Hitchens, as predictable as it was, did significantly stir me. The thoughts it triggered made me realize I would be a better person if I was to read more of Hitchens’ stuff. Taking immediate steps, I downloaded an allegedly inspiring little book by Hitchens – 2001’s Letters to a Young Contrarian.

Apparently, this book belongs to a series of titles in the series of “letters to a young something”; the series even includes, god forbid, Letters to a Young Catholic. I have no idea what format these other books are built around, but Hitchens’ is actually written in the form of personal letters addressed to X – as in you, the reader.

The letters take us through a journey of what it means to be dissident in Hitchens’ eye. The starting point is with explanations on the type of calling that this represents – not something you do, but rather something you are. Hitchens then moves along to provide example for proper forms of dissent, many of which are based on personal examples of his. This involves matters of expression, including a lengthy discussion on the use of humor. The book closes off with an inspirational summary.

You might notice I have used the phrase “inspire” more than once already, and that is no coincidence. Letters to a Young Contrarian is, indeed, a very inspiring book. I was touched by it: I was touched by the descriptions of Hitchens’ own wars, and then his projection on what wars the young dissenters who read the book will be fighting. According to Hitchens, the next big war to be fought is the war of a globalized world where many powers of old are doing their best to stick to the ways of the past so as to protect their power source. How prophetic can a person be? In a single sentence, Hitchens managed to bring the contemporary struggles for knowledge sharing in the age of the Internet (e.g., pirates vs. copyright holders and freedom of speech fighters such as Wikileaks) together with global warming under the same umbrella.

By far the most inspirational aspect of Letters to a Young Contrarian was the comparison I could not avoid making between this would be contrarian blogger and the one Hitchens models in his book. I may be flattering myself too much here, but the similarities seem too obvious to be a fluke: this whole writing is being feeling, the matter of holding strong opinions and not being afraid to express them, or the matter of standing up for what one believes in even if those beliefs come at a personal cost and even if they annoy important people (I just had such a brawl with my family, who did not like what I had to say about their country – see here and here). Most of all, it’s about that conviction that hopefully forces me not to stand by when something bad, like some sort of an injustice, happens.

Letters to a Young Contrarian is not devoid of faults, though. Personally, I found Hitchens’ prose to be rather annoying. The man is obviously a master of his language, but I am not; he kept on sending me to the dictionary at the rate of twice per page, and that terribly impacted on the flow of reading (score one for the Kindle's built in dictionary!). I realize the problem is with me more than with Hitchens, but I maintain that a clearly readable book is the better way of doing things. Hitchens’ colleague in many matters, Richard Dawkins, is an example for the style I look for: a writer who can express the most complex of ideas in such an easily readable manner that my grandmother would have an easy time understanding him. From her grave.

Overall:

I had many arguments with myself on the score I should give Letters to a Young Contrarian, the direct result of my ebbing and flowing sentiments towards Hitchens’ writing style. What I have no doubt about is that Hitchens is an inspirational philosopher, one of the greatest of our times; I will therefore give him credit and go with 4 out of 5 stars to this book.

Regardless of the score, it is very clear to me I should be reading more of Hitchens. Just the same, it is clear to me the world has lost a major asset this past December.

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

2012-01-04T23:43:00.000+11:00

Lowdown: A lone miner fights an interstellar corporation over cute alien creatures.

Review:

I bought Fuzzy Nation for my Kindle the day it came out but kept it aside since for a rainy day. After all, anything by John Scalzi can be trusted on a rainy day, can’t it?

Well, the rainy day did not arrive yet. Instead, following Scalzi’s own recommendation, I read Little Fuzzy, the book which Fuzzy Nation reboots. Yes, that’s one point worth spending a sentence or two on: Fuzzy Nation is not an original book, but rather a rewriting of an existing book (Little Fuzzy). Fearing the rereading of the same story yet again, I held Fuzzy Nation back. Then the Christmas holidays came along and I decided it’s stupid to wait for rainy days anymore and that I’ve waited long enough since Little Fuzzy.

Or did I? As I started reading Fuzzy Nation, deep worries crept up. I was reading Little Fuzzy all over again! Granted, it was a Scalzi story: between tales of cats and dogs (and later, bacon) I was able to read the Scalzi mind as I was reading through; indeed, I kept looking for Coke Zero to be mentioned (alas, it wasn’t). Yet I could not avoid the feeling that I’ve read this before, and with that feeling I could not avoid the notion that this might be it – this might just be the very first time I was to feel as if John Scalzi failed me as a writer. Indeed, if you want to know what Fuzzy Nation’s general plot is about, just go ahead and read what I have previously written about Little Fuzzy.

So – is that it? Did John Scalzi fail me? Did I feel disappointed after reading Fuzzy Nation? Was it a waste of time better spent reading the original once again?

The single word answer to that question is: No. And the more elaborate answer to that question is: I greatly enjoyed reading Fuzzy Nation. In fact, this has been the most enjoyable science fiction read I have had of a book published during 2011, which directly implies I will be nominating Fuzzy Nation for the upcoming Hugo awards (and, assuming I will end up eligible for voting as well, Fuzzy Nation will get my top vote).

How did that happen? How could Fuzzy Nation turn from a pending disaster into the best science fiction book I’ve bumped into during 2012?

The short answer is simple: I just continued reading the book. The longer answer will form the rest of this review.

To put things simply, Fuzzy Nation turned out to be an excellent book because it took the raw ingredients of Little Fuzzy and it improved on them. Improved on them greatly.

First there is the injection of that additional ingredient John Scalzi uses in his kitchen, the “Scalzi humor”. Fuzzy Nation is rife with Scalzi’s geeky sense of humor, that smart and subtle yet loud laughs generating thing that made previous books of his (like Agent to the Stars) and a large amount of his blog’s posts so entertaining to read.

Second, and more importantly, Scalzi addressed Little Fuzzy’s biggest problems and mended them perfectly. As I noted in my review of the original, Little Fuzzy suffers from lack of tension: we always know the goodies are going to win. That is not the case with Fuzzy Nation: I won’t bloop to tell you whether the goodies win or not, but I will say there is plenty of tension around. I will also add that for the majority of the book I was hard at work trying to figure out who the goodies were in the first place! It wasn’t my trademark daftness that prevented me from figuring this out: it was Scalzi gradually revealing additional layers of information to the reader as the plot thickened, expertly heightening the tension. Oh, and I need to report one other nice touch of Scalzi’s: he reduced the original's count of characters into something much more manageable by this daft reader.

With its added humor, mended thrills and ongoing anti corporate / pro environment spirit that wouldn’t shame the Occupy Wall Street movement, Fuzzy Nation takes what Little Fuzzy had to offer and delivers a significantly superior result. If you ask me, my best science fiction read of a 2011 published book.
One last comment: Fuzzy Nation is the first Scalzi book that was written while I was reading every word Scalzi was publishing on his blog. In retrospect, it feels as if I can trace specific pages to specific posts. In other words, the experience of reading Scalzi's blog has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of his book.

Overall: To quote the famous Aussie ad, “Oh Sclazi, you’ve done it again!” (as in, 4.5 out of 5 stars for Fuzzy Nation!)

Less than a year ago I reported thinking so highly of Scalzi that I couldn’t wait for Fuzzy Nation to come out. Now I will repeat the notion for his 2012 upcoming new release, Red Shirts. Given Red Shirts is a “proper” original title, there should be no reservations there – so yes, I can’t wait! This time around, I won't be waiting for the rain to come, either.

Battle Los Angeles

2011-12-22T22:56:00.000+11:00

Lowdown: Marines fight to retrieve Los Angeles from the clutches of aliens.

Review:

Some films make it clear one has to shut their brain down prior to watching them for risk of generating fatal short circuits. Battle Los Angeles is a prime example: a silly film made [probably] using gigantic budgets and doing its best to work on its viewer at the lower levels of the human experience. In its credit, Battle Los Angeles does what it does fairly well.

If you’re after a story then you’ll be disappointed: Battle Los Angeles’ is as basic as they come. We follow a marine sergent, Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) who has been there, done that, got his battle traumas, and is now about to retire. Lucky for him, these strange meteors falling upon the earth turn out to be nasty aliens attacking various cities across the earth. Nantz’ discharge is revoked, and his platoon is quickly scrambled under the hands of a new officer to a rescue operation in the occupied parts of Los Angeles.

What follows is a series of intense infantry battle scenes between our goodie marines and the vile aliens. The latter came all the way across the stars equipped with weapons not too different to those of our marines in grade, which makes for great Modern Warfare style battles as long as the viewer is able to disregard the fact it does not make sense. Further in the not making sense department is the explanation offered for the aliens’ visit: they are here to steal our water. As if there is such shortage of water in this universe that the aliens have to wage war to get some. Let’s put it bluntly: Battle Los Angeles is a dumb film.

As far as offences against the art of film making is concerned, the greatest one committed by Battle Los Angeles is its taking itself so seriously. When examined, Battle Los Angeles is not too different to other alien invasion film such as Independence Day. However, whereas the latter works by virtue of not taking itself too seriously and providing ample laughs, the former does most of its work by applying for its viewers’ patriotism. It is a very American film, with all the typical clichés one expects to find in an American action film sporting a gallant all American hero.

That said, the fight scenes are intense…

Worst scene: Nantz spontaneously stands to attention, salutes the waving American flag, and mimes something that I suspect all flag worshipping Americans would recognize. See my above point on how Battle Los Angeles works at the lowest of levels of the human experience.

Technical assessment: Battle Los Angeles is made to look like some sort of a reality show. It’s got long cuts and very – but very! – shaky handheld camera work (be warned). However, given the obviously rich nature of this production the picture on this Blu-ray is still good, and the soundtrack does very well at keeping suspense levels high over prolonged periods.

Overall: An intense but yet dumb experience. I’ll go for a middle of the road score of 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Tron

2011-12-21T23:53:00.002+11:00

Lowdown: The fight for controlling high tech corporations takes place inside the virtual world as well as the physical one.

Review:

I first heard of 1982’s Tron while reading an article in Byte magazine, which my uncle subscribed me to as a child in order to help improve my English by exposing me to my favorite subject matter at the time (and probably today, too): computers. The article was raving about the advanced technology utilized by this film, the pinnacle of which has been the large number of scenes that used a computer graphics generated world. When Tron hit Israeli cinemas it got the full on science fiction treatment, which meant I went to see it in the company of both my uncle and my father. We all greatly enjoyed it.

Roll back to the present, and Tron's sequel, Tron Legacy, happens to be my four year old's favorite film at the moment. As Tron Legacy proves, we treat computer graphics differently today; they're no longer a novelty. Our expectations of cinematic special effects are totally different, too. However, having watched Tron again I can venture my opinion there: although Tron is heavily outgunned by its contemporary sequel in the looks department, it is in no way outdated. Its depiction of the world inside a computer is still stimulating even if it is not as rich in style as more modern films. However, by the same token Tron is still a compromised film, a film where so much effort was put into the looks that other, more conventional aspects of a movie, were left neglected.

Tron has us following events in two parallel worlds. In our physical world, we have Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a brilliant computer programmer whose work was “borrowed” by a lesser programmer with better cunning skills, Dillinger (David Warner). With the help of two of his friends, Flynn infiltrates his former company’s offices to look for evidence showing he’s been wronged.

Meanwhile, inside the computer, the program created/borrowed/developed by Dillinger to maintain tight control over things and prevent leaks is running things like a dictatorship. Hungry for power, it takes control over every program it can put its hands own and then pits the renegades in gladiator like video games to the death. Renegade status is determined by programs' refusal to subdue themselves to the control program, the result of their belief in ultimate power lying at the hands of “users”. In the eyes of the computer programs, users are gods.

Things turn complicated when the evil computer system manages to get Flynn inside the computer world. There Flynn meets the alter egos of his real world friends, including Tron – a security program doing its best to obey its user and establish communication with the outside world. Will it manage that? And will Flynn be able to go back to the real world and claim what is rightfully is?

When considering the state of computers at the time Tron was released, and the non existence of the Internet, one has to credit Tron for its visionary qualities. The idea behind Tron is still original today. Further, the metaphor provided by the virtual world works quite effectively, too. I did have a problem with the analogy made between faith in the “users” and real world religion: I would argue that in both cases faith has nothing to do with anything; it’s evidence that matters. In the virtual world there is plenty of evidence for the users but also a tyrant that’s trying to hide these; in the real world, however, religion has no evidence to make a stand with.

Where Tron trips a bit is in the conventional side of movie making: it feels a bit clunky, it’s rather predictable, and its characters are too black and white. In this day and age where Tron’s special effects are less than dazzling, those deficiencies are much more noticeable.

Best scene: The cycle race / video game, of course. It’s still exciting, still original, and still brilliantly executed.

Overall: Tron is a 3 star film that’s worthy of more attention than its score would normally suggest.

Cowboys & Aliens

2011-12-19T23:13:00.000+11:00

Lowdown: Wild West gunslingers pick a fight with aliens.

Review:

Without help, a good idea can only push a movie that far. Cowboys & Aliens is proof: a film based entirely on the idea of pitting Wild West heroes against space age aliens. Sounds sexy; sounds cool! In reality, though, it’s pretty boring.

The biggest problem with the premises is that it’s an unfair fight. What can a bunch of horse riders expect to achieve against monsters with lasers, hovercrafts and spaceships? Cowboys & Aliens approaches this problem rather non creatively. It starts through the utilization of star power (Daniel Craig as the star, Harrison Ford in the uber supporting role). Then it cheats by starting the film with Craig sporting a magical bracelet on his hand, a bracelet that can fire grade A lasers capable of turning mean aliens to fodder. Can that bracelet be used to tilt the odds in favor of us humans? Can a cowboy ride a horse?

The beginning of the film’s Craig doesn’t remember who he is or why he is in the middle of the desert with a weird bracelet he can’t shake off on his hand. He quickly learns he’s a mean killing machine when three passer byes pick on him; he “borrows” one of their horses and lets the rest go in a manner quite atypical to the era where a horse was worth quite a lot but also a manner that repeats itself throughout the film. He then makes his way to the nearby town where all sorts of villains lurk around all sorts of good guys. I'm talking about guys like a Sam Rockwell, playing a role where his talents are totally and shamefully wasted on a minor role.
While Craig is busy learning his true nature as a wanted criminal, business as usual is interrupted when a bunch of hovercrafts attack the town and lasso some of its occupants away. The film's title gives away the baddie behind this foul did; it takes a group of our heroes to figure this out and attempt a rescue of the abductees, on the way turning the flock’s baddies into either bodies or goodies.

The number one problem with Cowboys & Aliens is not its predictability, nor it resorting to the stereotypes one has been trained to expect in a film such as this (token female characters, the lot). No, the number one problem is length: we watched the Blu-ray version that claims to be “extended” (it was the only one on the disc), but I would say the film would have greatly benefited if it was to be given an hour's worth of trimming. There is simply not enough action in between boredom to keep the viewer entertained and distracted from the silly crap the film has too much of, with the result being simply that – boredom.

So then the next question is, what are all these stars doing in such a crap film? Sadly, this question does not receive an answer. Indeed, if there is anything I took from watching Cowboys & Aliens, it’s how a mediocre treatment can ruin seemingly promising potential.

Technical assessment: As expected, Cowboys & Aliens is a good Blu-ray. The picture does suffer from scenery that doesn’t look as real as it should in the name of looking arty, while the sound is exactly what you’d expect from the genre and the budget of a film yielding star power of this caliber.

Overall: Proof that a film cannot rely on being built around a good idea, no matter how good that idea is, when there is no decent plot and decent characters to support it. 2 out of 5 stars.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

2011-12-13T23:00:00.003+11:00

Lowdown: A comprehensive biography of Steve Jobs.

Review:

Steve Jobs is a figure about which I cannot avoid having mixed feelings. On one hand, he’s in charge of creating incredible gadgets while on the other he’s in charge of generally pricing them out of my reach and artificially limiting their capabilities. Regardless, Jobs is one of those prophets under whose shadow my life is being lived: as an IT professional, as a child growing up in the PC era, as a gadget freak, wherever I go I am affected by Jobs and his creations. When I heard generally favorable feedback for this biography of his, I decided it was worth spending my time on if only to expand my understandings of this Information Age world we are living in.

You know what? Once I started reading the book I couldn’t look back. For a few weeks, Steve Jobs became an integral part of my life. Coincidently, I happened to buy my first Mac during the reading of the book.

Steve Jobs (the book) offers a very comprehensive look at the man’s life. Built as individual stories covering different aspects of Jobs’ life and told in chronological order (although some overlap is unavoidable), we follow Jobs from the time baby Steve was given away for adoption to the Jobs family and up until his immanent [recent] death. There’s him growing up, him building the first Apple computers with the other Steve [Wozniak], him artistically borrowing the Xerox interface to build the first Mac, him getting cast out of Apple, moving on to NeXT, Pixar, and then his resurrection back at Apple to turn a dying company into the world’s number one company, for better and worse. In effect, we have the rise, the fall, and the resurrection of the Jobs Messiah.

By far the greatest achievement of Steve Jobs, the book, is its careful depiction of a complicated reality. More than any book of fiction can do, Steve Jobs’ biography manages to portray a reality so complicated and involving so many characters that it feels real; it feels as if the book is taking its reader right inside Jobs’ world as his character evolves. The experience is simply fascinating: far from the normal portrayal of characters as either the defenders of all that is good or as the masters of all evil, this biography manages to portray Steve Jobs as a person. A person with ups and downs; a person that can be good and a person that can be bad. An utterly convincing person. A person just like the rest of us. I cannot recall a book that manages this feat as convincingly as Walter Isaacson does it here, be it from the fiction of non fiction department.

As comprehensive and thorough as the biography is, I found myself thinking a lot about the bits that weren’t there, the stories that were only half told, and the truths that were misrepresented. There are plenty of those around! On the omissions side, I found the book’s failure to mention the “I’m a Mac [and I’m a PC]” ads quite puzzling, especially given the ample room given to Apple’s advertising and marketing storydescribing. On the half truths side we have Ridley Scott, the director of Apple’s famous 1984 Big Brother TV ad, described as a director coming straight off the success of Blade Runner; alas, at the time Blade Runner was considered a major flop. It took years, decades, for the film to be recognized as the Pièce de résistance we tend to regard it as now. Another case of presenting the Apple version of the truth comes with the telling of the various shenanigans of the iPhone 4, such as Antennagate and the story where a Gizmodo editor’s house was raided by police at Apple’s request after Gizmodo managed to put its hand on an iPhone 4 prototype. The book describes the incident as a normal police raid, and tells the story in a non flattering way, portraying Apple as a company that tries too hard to take control over the world. It glosses over Apple describing the phone to the police as an item so valuable it cannot be priced; as with the later search for the elusive iPhone 5, Apple does not mind putting itself above the justice system.

All these deficiencies are worth pointing out because Steve Jobs’ biography tries to create an image of a person trying to create the best technological gadgets people couldn't even dream of through a vision of one company that controls everything from start to finish in order to create simple products. That’s fine; that’s what so great about Apple. But hey, what about all those third world people that pay for Apple’s success in sweat and blood? What about Apple’s abuse of its own customers, where the company happily killsits products once they reach their second anniversary? You won’t find much mentioning of that in the book.

The Steve Jobs at the beginning of the book was a pirate who built his success on the efforts of others. I say that in the most flattering of ways: that is what human civilization is all about. The Steve Jobs at the end of the book is almost the exact opposite: a person wary of collaboration, a person who – in many aspects – became an opponent of a sharing culture. A person that could be said to have sold his soul on his way to the throne.

So yeah, I think this biography missed out on some key aspects of its subject matter. As an advocate of the open source philosophy, I consider this disregard crucial if the purpose of the book was to provide a conclusive review of the person that was Steve Jobs. Indeed, it is clear to me that Steve Jobs and I would have never got along well with one another: he would have probably labeled me a B person, and I would have dismissed him as an inconsiderate two faced person that spat into the well he used to drink from. What this biography makes pretty clear to me is that the person I take as the real hero from this book is the other Steve: between his engineering smarts, easy character and willingness to share, Steve Wozniak is clearly a person I would have loved a chance to be friends with. Sure, Apple would not have become what it ended up as without the Jobs' Steve; but then again, the whole of human civilization is built on many bad things that took place in its history, things that at the time we would have preferred to have gone down better. In other words, I argue that the end results of Steve Jobs’ ventures do not justify the means with which they were achieved.

Overall:

Despite all my criticism, once I regard Steve Jobs’ biography for what it is – a book, not the ultimate word of god – I cannot avoid crediting it for what it is. It is a complex portrayal of a complex person, and as such it is an intriguing, and an often touching, read. Given that, and given the amount of creative thinking the book had generated, I cannot avoid crediting it with 4.5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended!

A View to a Kill

2011-12-04T00:13:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: James Bond at the Silicon Valley.

Review:

The pages of history will probably remember 1985’s A View to a Kill in the light of the family experiences Bond films have provided me: this is the series’ only episode I had the pleasure of watching at the cinemas in the company of my sister (for the record, the cinema was Ramat Gan’s now dead Ordea). You can also argue A View to a Kill is remembered as the last of Roger Moore’s Bond and/or as a film that clearly takes its cues from its two prequels, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy. No surprises there, really: Moore’s age clearly shows (he was in his late fifties by then), and this trio of Bond films were all directed by the same guy – John Glen.

However, A View to a Kill is clearly the inferior of the three. It follows all the normal queues, starting with an extreme action scene that’s totally unrelated to the main film, moving through avant-garde opening credits, and then exposing us to a villain that can only be stopped by a gadget equipped Bond taking action into his own hands and various women into his (or their) beds. This time around the villain is portrayed by Christopher Walken, an actor I could never really sympathize with, in the role of a psychopath silicon valley millionaire that’s out to do something nasty. The key problem is the film focusing too much on Walken character’s horse racing ventures, which are dead boring. So boring that even Grace Jones in the role of Walken’s right hand can’t get the film started.

It’s not just the plot, it’s also the locations. Most of the film is set in the USA, and despite a short excursion to Paris there simply isn’t that exotic feeling that other Bonds were saturated with. Even Paris doesn’t do it anymore: most of has have been there, unlike the locations most other Bonds go for. The same goes with Bond's cars: there is nothing flashy this time around, certainly nothing to rival the car that turns to a submarine (The Spy Who Loved Me) or the boat that turns into a glider (Moonraker).
On the positive side, one has to praise the visionary side of the Bond series yet again: although by 1985 we all knew computers were important and we’ve all heard of the Silicone Valley, it was up to the Bond series to take the task of portraying the end of that valley as a cataclysmic event that requires no one but the best to dismantle.

Disappointing scene: The final showdown over the Golden Gate Bridge is quite disappointing. Even when considering digital effects didn’t exist at the time, the scene simply fails to impose the grandness of the location on the action.

Overall: My four year old and I agree, A View to a Kill not only feels more contrived than usual, it is a fairly boring film too. And “boring” is not a word one should find in the James Bond dictionary. 2 out of 5 stars.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

2011-11-29T23:08:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: The end of Harry Potter.

Review:

Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsPart 1 had the unenviable job of setting things up for Episode 8, the culmination of the Harry Potter series. In my opinion it failed because it was too busy in the setting things up department to act as a worthwhile film by its own rights. The question now is, how good is Part 2? Was it worth the wait?

Well, Part 2 does not wait for you to ask any questions – it just streams into action from the minute your Blu-ray player allows you to start watching the film (which, as people experienced in the Blu-ray experience would tell you, can take a whole lot of rather too long moments to get to). Right there is my first complaint at the film (as opposed to the Blu-ray format): it is pretty unforgiving to those of us who do not recall exactly where things were left off by Part 1 or, for that matter, do not remember many other fine details from previous episodes.

The plot of Part 2 centers around a Voldemort that’s finally making real moves in the real world to establish himself (the question of what he’s trying to establish himself as is left rather ambiguous). On their part, Harry Potter and his gang are out to search and destroy the various bits of his soul and thus, eventually, kill the menace once and for all. As with the book, any attempt at a worthwhile plot is held back by attempts to seal loose ends from previous episodes, but still leaving the more curious viewer with plenty of unanswered questions. As with previous films in the series, events are piled up one of top of the other in a manner that is hard to follow (unless one is fluent with the books); it feels as if the script was written with a checklist of scenes to cover in mind.

That said, there is a lot of intensity about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. That is to say, there is a lot going on here in the action department, so most of the time you wouldn’t really stop to think about the plot but rather find yourself tossed from one rollercoaster to the other. Things culminate with the battle for Hogwarts, which is portrayed in a manner not unlike World War I films or footage depicting the evils of Nazis.

Worst scenes: One of the Harry Potter series’ trademarks has been the sporadic use of the best of British acting talents. This happens again, but the sporadic-ness is even more extreme with the likes of Emma Thompson or Miriam Margolyes having such marginal roles it’s a shame to have them waste their time on this project.

Technical assessment:

As with Part 1, Part 2 totally overwhelmed my LCD rear projection TV’s ability to render a picture worth watching by over challenging its black level rendering. I know I’m due for a new TV, but I would like to challenge the artistic reasons behind the creation of such a dark pair of films here. The real world, even when in dire straits, is not as bleak; not even holocaust movies go that far.

As for the sound department, this Blu-ray performs as expected to deliver a very solid presentation.

Overall:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is the best of the more recent Harry Potter films by virtue of the density of its activity levels. There aren’t many boring parts here! On the other hand, it is a far cry from the charm of the first films, where magic was more than adequate substitution for guns and bullets, as it is here, not to mention the charms of the books. I’ll put it this way: no one would be excited about Episode 8 of the Harry Potter series if it wasn’t for its prequels. Indeed, as I have been arguing for a while I do not think the films would have created as much excitement as they did if it weren’t for the books.

Which is my way of saying that as a whole, the Harry Potter film series is nothing special. This particular episode just manages to scrape the bottom of 3 out of 5 stars rankings. I consider series' third instalment, The Prisoner of Azkaban, to be the best of the lot by a wide margin.

True Grit

2011-11-27T22:38:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A young and determined Wild West girl hires a marshal to bring her father’s killer to justice.

Review:

I greatly enjoyed watching True Grit. Between its fine display of acting, well developed mix of flawed and eccentric characters, and mesmerizing Western style cinematography it was easy to realize this is high quality cinema. Yet I couldn’t put my hand on what it is, exactly, that characterizes this film. Then the end credits came up, proclaiming True Grit to be a Coen Brothers film. And it dawned on me: the best way to describer what True Grit is like is to mention it is a Coen Brothers’ film. So there you have it; you don't need to read the rest of this review.

If you must insist, though, then I will tell you that True Grit is a Western. It follows a young girl, Mattie (Hailee Steinfeld) whose father was murdered by one of his own employees. The killer had fled justice, and with the wife lacking resolve it is up to the daughter – our young girl of a heroine – to sort things out. Sorting out she does, her way; and this time, it's personal.

Mattie manages to bargain her way through her father’s financial commitments and moves on to secure the services of the notorious marshal Rooster Cogburn, a man of true grit (the exceptional Jeff Bridges). Their plan is to venture together into the Indian reserve where the killer is hiding and bring him to justice (as well as give Rooster his money). However, Rooster doesn’t need the girl by his side at such a dangerous environment; he prefers LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas ranger hunting the same killer for past crimes.

It doesn’t take long for Mattie to show us all who’s got true grit where it counts. Rooster is a slave to the bottle, and LaBoeuf talks the talk but doesn’t really walk the walk. Both are your typical useless Coen Brothers characters, whereas the girl is the non contaminated, determined one who gets things done.

True Grit has its slower moments, but still: between it being so well made, and the actors – all of them - giving such a fine display, I greatly enjoyed it. Since Westerns are pretty rare nowadays, True Grit is to be very welcomed.

P.S. This 2010 version of True Grit is a remake of the 1969 True Grit starring John Wayne. I haven’t seen the original, or at least don’t recall seeing the original, and therefore cannot compare the two.

Technical assessment:

Roger Deakins’ wonderful cinematography alone justifies watching True Grit on Blu-ray and nothing else; it is truly exceptional. That cinematography also means that one can witness the occasional grain and unnatural feel, but it’s pretty clear these are intentional.

Things are much less spectacular in this Blu-ray’s sound department, where everything is front-centered and, in general, nothing much exciting happens.

Best scene: I really liked True Grit’s opening scene and the way we are presented to the small Wild West town’s world where the film starts. Did I mention the cinematography?

Overall: A fine, if typically Coen eccentric film, that’s drifting between 3.5 and 4 out of 5 stars.

Salt

2011-11-23T23:20:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A female CIA agent with James Bond like talents needs to prove the hard way she is no Russian traitor.

Review:

At the end of its hour and three quarters, the best thing I could say about Salt is pay tribute to it casting a female in the role of the ultimate action hero. Angelina Jolie’s Evelyn Salt looks and feels like someone who would flick James Bond aside the way we do a fly. But is that all Salt has to offer us?

Salt is a ruthless and devoted secret CIA agent. We know this because the film starts with her being held captive at North Korea and not breaking down despite all the torture inflicted on her (while, it has to be said, she is wearing nothing but fashionable lingerie; I guess the North Koreans are not the ruthless torturers we imagine them to be). She’s freed through a prisoner exchange and comes back home for her day job, where – suddenly, out of the blue – this Russian accented guy who claims to be a defector comes in and claims she is a Russian agent. Could that be? Her colleagues don’t want to take any risks, with the Russian Prime Minister in for a visit and a lingering threat of an assassination attempt on him. Our Salt has to take matters into her own hands, literally, escape her mates and prove herself right.

What follows is an action filled film featuring countless death defying stunts and thrills. Salt does a pretty good job in the action department; unlike most of its competition, digital effects and various other means work. It really is easy to believe it's Jolie that’s jumping from the top of one truck to another that’s on an entirely different freeway and heading in the opposite direction.

The problem is not in the action, the problem is in the plot. Essentially what we have on our hands here is a drama similar to Kevin Costner’s No Way Out: you don’t know whether the hero is a Russian or not, and indeed – you’re kept guessing who the goodies and the baddies are in the first place. While No Way Out was a drama, Salt is an action piece, and it takes its cues from the likes of Call of Duty - Modern Warfare. I shit you not, there are elements in Salt that are borrowed one for one. Thing is, the Modern Warfare series may be a great video game series, but it is not known for its plot. Credibility and reliability suffer, to say the least – and as a result of inspiring Salt, credibility and reliability greatly suffer in the latter, too.

The result? You watch Salt and you’re thrilled, but the minute you start thinking of what led to what you start getting a headache. When truths about characters are finally exposed it gets even worse, because it becomes retrospectively clear that none of them has acted in their own best interests; they acted in what the viewer perceives to be their best interest at the time when the viewer did not know everything there is to know about them. And that, ladies and gentleman, does not make sense.

Aussie director Phillip Noyce (Rabbit Proof Fence) has delivered plenty of action films in his career (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger). They’re all slick, but they’re all suffering in one department or the other. Salt’s the same. It's a shame: Noyce is obviously quite talented, as films like The Quiet American unequivocally prove.

P.S. I admit to be puzzled by the film’s name. I’m unable to think of a worthwhile reason for calling the film Salt, other than it being the heroine’s name. Is it that the studio is planning to release a sequel called Pepper?

Best scene: Salt’s husband is being slowly killed in front of her in order to test her loyalties. Jolie can act, we know that already.

Technical assessment: A pretty spectacular Blu-ray with enough explosions to destroy any good feelings your neighbors might have hold for you and your home theater.

Overall: Good and bad at the same time, but entertaining nevertheless. I would place Salt somewhere between 2.5 to 3 stars out of 5.

The Rebound

2011-11-21T23:27:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: A divorced middle aged woman with kids has an affair with a much younger guy.

Review:

MILF is a rather confronting term: I don’t know what’s more shameful, admitting to know what the term stands for or being so out of touch as to not knowing what it stands for. Yet MILF is the concept used by Hollywood’s marketing departments when they worked hard to think what other ideas they can use in order to come up with an excuse for a romantic comedy. The Rebound is the result of their effort.

The MILF factor is portrayed by a Catherine Zeta-Jones portraying the role of Sandy. Sandy is a 40 year old devoted mother whose entire life revolves around her two children, giving up on the promises of her talents and education in the process (tell me about it!). Her world shatters when she discovers a video that's too conveniently placed on her product placed Mac, portraying her husband’s sexual escapades with a female neighbor. In need of a rebound, Sandy gets a divorce, and moves from the suburbs to inner city New York.

Her friends try and help, but one thing leads to another and Sandy ends up rebounding through Aram (Justin Bartha), a nice Jewish boy in his early twenties. Aram is a divorcee of sorts, too, traumatized by the French girl who married and quickly dumped him to get her Green Card. As much as he was wronged, he is still unable to file for the divorce that would get his ex evicted. He’s a nice guy all around who is yet to realize how to get his own in life. That is, until Sandy steps in: he gets along well with the kids, he gets along well with the mother, so how can he go wrong? By now you can get the gist of what The Rebound is about; it’s as predictable as any American made romantic comedy, but it does pull a good one on you from time to time.

Casting is one of the ways The Rebound pulls its tricks through. On the one hand, the casting of Art Garfunkel is Aram’s father is brilliant: sure, I’m severely biased, but I think Garfunkel’s moments under the limelight are the film’s most interesting. However, with The Rebound things come down to one question: Can the glamorous Zeta-Jones truly portray the average midlife crisis struck woman? I don’t think so. Add Sandy’s own doing too well to be true on her new career path and The Rebound totally loses credibility in its attempt to tell us not to fear change so much as to avoid tackling the relationships that just don’t work anymore. Or is The Rebound trying anything at all other than mild entertainment?

Best scene: Sandy’s blind date isn’t going too well when her partner starts a discussion with her while he’s inside a toilet, proving there is lots of room for unexplored toilet humor.

Technical assessment: An average Blu-ray.

Overall: Mildly better than average but still a run of the mill romantic comedy. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Octopussy

2011-11-17T23:33:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: Another Roger Moore’s Bond.

Review:

By far the most important impact Octopussy has had on my life is to do with it being the only James Bond film I watched at the cinemas together with my uncle. It is worth mentioning because during those years I used to visit the cinemas about twice a week with him, yet the rest of the Bonds turned out the exceptions. That is, the few films my parents did attend with me were the films they had personal interest in rather than them wanting to spend quality time with their child.

Other than that there is not much for me to add about Octopussy, the 1983 incarnation of Roger Moore in the role of Bond, James Bond. It is fairly similar in character to its predecessor, For Your Eyes Only, in themes and style (not that big a surprise, given they were both directed by John Glen).
Octopussy does suffer in the script department: its story feels as feeble as a story could get, with a plot that ranges from an evil plot by an aspiring Soviet general, fake Fabergé eggs and other jewellery heists, to the woman smuggler lending the film its name: the woman reigning over a cult of woman running its own island, Octopussy (Maud Adams) provides Bond a target for his chauvinistic charms this time around.

What saves the film are its action scenes, in particular the race to dismantle a ticking atomic bomb at the core of a circus act. It’s a pity we don’t see classic action stuff like this anymore; today's action is synonymous with over the top CGI and shaky, nausea inducing camera work.

Best scene: Bond’s crocodile shaped personal submarine was the household four year old’s favorite.

Overall: Thin on most departments other than the action, Octopussy lies somewhere between 3 and 3.5 out of 5 stars.

For Your Eyes Only

2011-11-16T23:00:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: The further adventures of James Bond, the ultimate all around hero.

Review:

Our current escapade into my childhood’s episodes of James Bond, which started off last week with Moonraker, continues with its 1981 sequel For Your Eyes Only.

Roger Moore continues his less serious portrayal of Bond, James Bond. This time the thinner than air plot involves attempts to recover a secret British communications device, lost at sea, which could be used to order British nuclear submarines to fire their nuclear missiles anywhere the device’s owner wishes (obviously, those submarines are controlled by Windows running computers; wait, they actually do!). As usual, his missions lead Bond to all sorts of exotic places around the world, where he bumps into various people that try to kill him. In typical fashion, he also bumps into numerous women. In a slight contrast to Moonraker, action scenes are more robust and authentic (but still always carried with at least half a smile) and James’ attitude is slightly, but ever so slightly, less chauvinistic. We do get the typical formula, including that baddie woman that turns goodie and then dies a martyr's death for her sin; however, Four Your Eyes Only’s ace card is Haim Topol in the role of a baddie turned goodie that likes to eat his pistachios wherever he goes, gun fights included. He's so cool he even uses the shells to kill his enemies! Talking about the ultimate Israeli action hero - in your face, Zohan!

It has to be said: some of the action scenes in For Your Eyes Only are quite spectacular, even in this day and age of digital effects. That is no mean feat, and probably the reason why in this grown up boy’s view For Your Eyes Only is the best James Bond movie ever.

Yes, the best. Because between diving action scenes, skiing action scenes, driving action scenes and your average shootouts, James Bond establishes himself as the ultimate video game hero character long before video games came to be. It is obvious where today’s most successful games, like the Uncharted series, took their inspiration from.

Best scene: Bond and his Bond Girl outdo and escape a multitude of well equipped baddies driving a battered Citroen De Chevaux through some curvy Spanish hills and olive groves. It’s the classic James Bond funny action scene.

Overall: Silly, but also exciting and more than a bit visionary. 4 out of 5 stars.

P.S. According to my wife, East Germany had its communist answer to the James Bond series in the shape of their own secret-life-of-an-action-spy film which they creatively called Four Eyes Only. One is left to wonder whether that naming was intentional or the result of some poor communist's ignorance in the English language.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

2011-11-14T23:27:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: The fight for civil liberties in the USA is led by an otherwise normal 17 year old.

Review:

Marcus is a regular high schooler living in contemporary San Francisco. In his regular life he is tracked wherever he goes by surveillance cameras and various smart cards he carries on him. Even at school they have these special cameras identifying him by his gait and tracking his position. Marcus is smart enough, though, to know how to outsmart all these surveillance measures: starting from placing some sand in his shoes to deal with gait recognition and progressing through mild hacking, Marcus finds it all to easy to skip a class or two in order to go and play online reality games with his friends from the Bay.

One such "short" school day Marcus finds the entire paradigm changed. Without causing too much of a blooper, he suddenly finds himself labelled as an enemy of own country. He finds he’s being watched at his own bedroom. He has to be a good citizen and live his life quietly, not saying a thing even to his parents, or else the authorities would “take care” of him. But Marcus won’t take it lying down; his freedom, his real freedom - as per the Declaration of Independence – is too important. He starts off moderately by distributing Linux CDs to his friends so they can communicate unmonitored, but quickly finds himself the face of rebellion against authority.

Little Brother is the second young adult book from Cory Doctorow I get to read after For the Win. Just as For the Win, Little Brother is a winner: a very exciting book to read. Little Brother deals with very important and relevant material for this post September 11 world of ours. As with For the Win lessons in economics, Little Brother presents its agenda in a manner that is very easy to relate to. More than anything else, Little Brother is an explanation for how and why hacking, copying and sharing are fundamental to a healthy democratic society – just the opposite of what we are normally “taught” by the powers that be and the authorities. Indeed, Doctorow is ever so convincing when it comes to demonstrating why we needn’t take the crap shoved at us by authorities lying down. Things like smart cards that track and maintain our train rides and tollways’ histories as well as porn scanners at the airport: any security benefits these may give us are but an illusion when every Marcus like kid can outmanoeuvre them.

Little Brother’s story is told in first person from Marcus’ mouth. Perhaps it’s because we’re hearing things from the mouth of a 17 year old, Little Brothers’ language feels a bit too rough around the edges. Still, telling us of his online mischief that has the authorities running around in circles has Doctorow, in effect, telling us of the quickly falling boundaries between the virtual and the real world (just as he did in For the Win). In today’s technologically oriented information society, control over the online world means control over the people; the inevitable conclusion is that the fight for the freedom of the Internet is one of the most important fights today’s society has on its agendas.

The well versed Doctorow spices his book with authentic real life information on hacking, discussing things such as the use of TOR and encryption keys. While some of the descriptions and the technologies feel a tad out of date (smartphones, for example, don’t play a role in Little Brother), everything is quite high on real life authenticity: most of the technologies and hacks Doctorow mentions are out there to be used if you know how (and if you don't, the book's explanations will usually make sure you know). Authenticity doesn’t come only through the descriptions of real life technologies but from other real life stuff: key events from the past few decades of the American antiwar protest movement are widely referred to, as well as real life books and the fact that Domino’s Pizza tastes like crap when the fact the company contributes money too all sorts of fundamentalist organizations is taken into account.

It is this atmosphere of authenticity that is key to Little Brother being the good “call of arms” book it is when it comes to matters of civil liberties, because none of the measure taken by the authorities in the book against the citizens of the USA has not been used in real life. Turning suspects over to countries where torture is allowed, holding suspects without trial, not informing relatives of held suspects, preventing suspects from talking of their ordeals, this has all happened before – just ask David Hicks or Mamdouh Habib. If you think these things can only happen in the USA because, you know, the USA is such a backwards country, please have a chat with Dr Muhamed Haneef or count the number of cameras recording your every move in the UK. You don’t have to, though: you can ponder about the way you’re treated whenever you board an international flight.

Little Brother is book of extreme importance to the greater public. Not only does it highlight the dangers of a society surrendering the achievements gained over hundreds of years in order to make our society better, the war of worlds it describes is still being waged as we speak. Last week alone the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) lost the legal battle for the privacy of users’ Twitter information, which implies American authorities can browse everything on American servers at will without needing anyone’s permission and without telling anyone. If you use Google, Facebook or Apple to look after your info (do you use iCloud services on your iPhone?), you’re in the pocket of the American government. Then there is the matter of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation that seems to be rushed through before the Christmas break and is probably the most dangerous piece of legislation to civil liberties ever! It’s all going on as you’re reading this, but it won’t be Marcus that would stop it from happening; Marcus is a fictional character. You're not.

Overall: Little Brother is not only an exciting, thrilling and authentic book to read. It is also a book that’s important to read, a book every thinking person should read. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
P.S. You cannot blame Cory Doctorow for not standing up to his own standards. You can download Little Brother for free at Doctorow's own website here.

The Young Victoria

2011-11-13T11:16:00.001+11:00

Lowdown: The young princess Victoria’s rises up to the challenge of becoming a monarch.

Review:

As I was watching 2009’s The Young Victoria I could picture the process that got the film makers rolling. I could see marketing people running amok, desperately trying to come up with ideas for a period drama that would appeal to women viewers and fetch money to the studio. “Give me a Pride & Prejudice, damn it!”, I could hear the department head shouting. Then, as everyone grew silent, the newest employee with nothing to lose whispered: “What about Queen Victoria?”

And thus The Young Victoria came to be: a period film designed to mix court politics, romance and beautiful period sets into something sellable. Something people would want to watch. Me, I wanted to watch it because it featured Emily Blunt, the actress that so very much impressed me recently with her performances in The Adjustment Bureau and Wild Target.

Blunt plays the young would be Queen Vicky, the sole descendant of the three sons and daughters of the previous English monarch. Victoria is protected and held, as if hostage, by her mother (Miranda Richardson) and her mother’s advisor (Mark Strong); however, she wants to grow to be her own woman. In parallel we see the would be Prince Albert, a member of a clan making up most of Europe’s monarchies (that same clan that brought you World War 1); Albert is also being groomed to be something he does not want to be, a political pawn. Can the two rise above their circumstances? Well, we know the story even without me providing any spoilers here already.

The real issue with The Young Victoria is whether this story and the elaborate period setup provides enough ammo to run a film with. I argue it doesn’t.

For a start, I couldn’t feel the least bit moved for any of the characters. Sure, Vicky has had her family issues. Big deal! She was still living in a palace with people wiping her butt for her at a time when three year olds were being groomed en masse to work as chimney cleaners with a life expectancy lower than my shoe size (as measured by American standard shoe sizes!). No, not even the inclusion of a Paul Bettany playing Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister and a potential adversary in Albert’s path to Victoria’s heart, could trigger the slightest interest.

Instead it all felt like a particularly boring movie version of something we’ve all seen many times before. Boredom is the key experience I took out of The Young Victoria: for all its elaborate settings and extravagant costumes, I could not avoid looking at my watch every couple of minutes to verify the world did not come to a halt yet.

Overall: Perhaps it’s my natural tendency to treat monarchy with contempt that’s at fault here, but I was bored shitless by The Young Victoria. 1.5 out of 5 stars.