• Although I generally support Google, when choosing between Apple or Google, I generally go with Apple. iPhone over Android. Safari over Chrome. iPhoto over Picasa. I love OS X. I haven’t been tempted to switch to Windows for years, not XP, Vista, or Windows 7. I’m more tempted by Chrome OS than Vista, but that’s really not saying much.
• Desktop apps are still important. The OS doesn’t matter, and all that matters is a browser? We’ll do all our work in the “cloud?” At the rate things are going, maybe in 2033, until then, I call bull. I am still not a fan of web apps. A Mac with just Safari and Mail wouldn’t cut it for me, and does a huge disservice to all the work Apple has done to its iLife apps. Syncing an iPod or an iPhone with iTunes, or using iTunes to stream video and audio to my Apple TV, or using iPhoto to manage photographs; all things I can’t live without. I’ve got a really good ecosystem going on, here. Then add on any number of apps I use on a daily basis (Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash, Word, Pages) and even contemplating a switch is pointless. This logic works for Windows users, too. Number one on most Windows’ users list why they won’t switch to a Mac: Some Windows app they just can’t do without. If they won’t switch to OS X, they won’t switch to Chrome.
• V1 anything isn’t worth the risk. Google made a pre-announcement. There’s no beta to play with. Nothing concrete until the middle of next year. Both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are coming this fall. OS X in particular has gone through several years and versions of development, and is pulling ahead of Windows. Dinking around with a Google web app beta is one thing, an entire OS is another.

I do welcome Google into the operating system fray, namely to provide another option and make Microsoft waste time and money worrying (they sure did both with that Yahoo! acquisition). While Microsoft and Google duke this out, Apple will have a great opportunity to further improve OS X and the iPhone OS.

But this battle will take years, and Google is clearly, the huge underdog. Apple’s been trying for years to unseat Microsoft and I see very little that indicates Google will have any more success.

I hope this Google Chrome OS runs in VMWare Fusion because that’s where I’ll stick it - along with its cohorts XP and Windows 7 - running within in a safe little window in OS X, at least until it proves itself. And judging by how neither Windows or Linux have proved themselves to me, that wait will likely be extremely long, indeed.

Will the Google OS be able to run the Mac OS and Windows 7 in a virtual machine within a browser running HTML5? Doubt it. There’s another reason.

= 3 stars

Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Sorvino
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Lenny (Woody Allen) and Amanda (Helena Bonham Carter) adopt a particularly bright child and name him Max. Curious where he got his smarts, Lenny investigates Max’s true parentage and finds his birth mother is a blonde, doltish porn star, Linda Ash (Mia Sorvino).

The Good

• Mia Sorvino is excellent as the central, dumb as bricks Linda Ash, who takes everything at face value, treats sex as ordinary, with a horsey voice of a sedated Muppet.
• A little Pygmalion when Lenny decides to help Linda become a better actress, which in true tragic terms, soon goes horribly awry.
• Some funny moments when Lenny fixes Linda up with the equally moronic Kevin (Michael Rapaport).

The Bad

• By this point, Allen is so old he doesn’t fit the character - Lenny’s married to a much younger wife (Helena Bonham Carter) and pals around with Linda - it’s frankly rather gross. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the plot is a contrivance to have him cavorting around with much younger women. Not helping things is a late plot development where Lenny beds Linda.
• There’s a Greek chorus that interjects itself into the plot to comment on new developments, but the gimmick grows tiresome after the first few appearances.
• The parallel plot line of Amanda’s affair (gee, an affair in an Allen movie? Bet you didn’t see that one coming) gets lost in the shuffle. Part of this I chalk up to the relative paint-by-numbers joylessness of Bonham Carter’s performance.

Conclusion

Worth a rental just for Mia Sorvino’s performance; all else is average Allen.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Everyone Says I Love You
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Bullets Over Broadway

IMDB: Mighty Aphrodite
Wikipedia: Mighty Aphrodite
Rotten Tomatoes: Mighty Aphrodite 75%

• $1 per night. No monthly or late fees, although if you keep a movie out for $25 worth the charges are capped and you just bought yourself a DVD.
• Pick up and return DVDs at any Redbox kiosk.
• You can rent DVDs directly at a kiosk on the spot, or reserve a movie in advance online via their website, and then visit a vending machine to pick it up.
• Selection centers around recent releases.

Although it’s hard to imagine a service more convenient than Netflix, Redbox solves a few Netflix annoyances:

• Picking up DVDs locally in kiosks is faster than ordering a DVD online and waiting for it to arrive in the mail, satisfying the common “impulse rent” aspect.
• Placing kiosks in grocery stores is borderline genius - I’m sure most people visit a grocery store at least once a week.
• The unwatched Netflix movie: We all know the situation of a Netflix movie sitting on a counter, unwatched for days. If you fail to watch several movies a month, the monthly Netflix fee is wasted. Meanwhile, since Redbox is $1 per night with no monthly fee, you can easily pause after returning a DVD for weeks at a time. So with the cheapest Netflix plan being about $5, you may be better off with Redbox if you watch less than five movies a month and visit a grocery store at least once a week.

So Netflix is a better deal if you watch tons of movies a month, like to watch movies outside the range of recent releases, and are organized / tech saavy enough to set up an online queue and take advantage of Watch Instantly. And Redbox is a better deal if you watch less than five movies a month, visit a grocery store regularly, watch mostly recent releases, and don’t want to spend time managing a queue, or have no interest in watching movies on your computer.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the vast majority of the population falls in the Redbox category.

But thinking further: Netflix is well aware that DVD by mail strategy is a dead end, and their solution is online streaming as their delivery method. But by choosing this path, all sorts of road blocks pop up:

• Studio rights - all the content has to be licensed from the studios.
• Broadband is necessary to stream video.
• Hooking the service up to the TV requires new hardware (XBOX, Roku, fancy new TV or Blu-Ray player), plus additional tech savvy.
• Cable companies, in cahoots with broadband and studios will surely try to slow Netflix down, through broadband caps, limiting licensing agreements, or other borderline dirty tricks.

The end result: Watch Instantly has poor selection, giving many viewers less incentive to figure out how to get it on their television. You can see Netflix scrambling to beef up their selection and add software to various hardware to make installation a non-issue, but meanwhile, most families have DVD players right now.

But there’s also a statement about cool technology vs. what actually works for the end user. To technophiles, it seems like a given that Internet distribution for video is the future, physical media are dead, and Netflix is totally on the right track.

But to average joe user, none of this tech matters. They just want to watch a movie at a fair price in the most convenient way possible. They’re too busy to watch tons of movies or set up new boxes in the increasingly crowded entertainment system. They don’t care whether a movie is available through streaming,  DVD, or cable. They already have a DVD player right now that works just fine, and each time they go to the grocery store, they see a Redbox kiosk. And grocery stores aren’t owned by movie studios that have a vested interest in keeping this content from shoppers.

Until Netflix’s fancy schmancy futuristic technology becomes mainstream (if it ever does), I can see how it could be trumped by “old-school” vending machines in a grocery store. And although the technology / movie lover in me hates the concept behind Redbox - every other part of me (namely, the wallet) can clearly see how it makes a lot of sense.

= 5 stars

Starring John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Tilly
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

1920s playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) is forced to cast ditsy mob moll Olive (Jennifer Tilly) in his play, funded by gangsters.

The Good

• David (Jon Cusack) is a great Allen doppelganger, quite credible as a whiny director despite a completely different physical appearance, mostly because he’s always been a big dork every since Better Off Dead. Diane Wiest is awesome as Helen St. Claire, a boisterious prima donna, quite the opposite of the insecure Holly from Hannah And Her Sisters. Also contrasting is the dumb-as-bricks, talentless Olive (Jennifer Tilly). The two leading ladies’ conflict is a little like Margo from All About Eve meeting Lina Lamont from Singin’ In The Rain. Watching Cusack squirm as he tries to juggle the pair is classic, hilarious stuff.
• Elements of previous work is more successful here: it’s a period piece like Purple Rose of Cairo, with mob elements from Broadway Danny Rose. Characters contemplate the meaning of art (Stardust Memories). But in almost every way it’s more epic, with bolder contrasts, most clearly due to the introduction of the dangerous mob. Eventually, there is gunplay, which happens at just the right moment.
• Brisk, tight pacing. Before we know it, the play is underway, the conflict defined, and then we wonder how the heck David will get out of this muddle alive.
• The play-within-a-movie plot ads another layer of entertainment, as it provides a bunch of nutty, colorful actors, namely Tracey Ulmann, and Jim Broadbent as an closet overeater.
• Olive’s mob chaperone Cheech (Chaz Palminteri) adds commentary on the nature of the artist. He dislikes David’s writing and starts offering improvements - which are really good. How this situation resolves is yet another joy to watch, as Cheech decides art is more important than life itself.

The Bad

• The subplot of David falling for Helen and conflict with his wife (Mary-Louise Parker) is a bit awkward, despite a touching conclusion. It’s by now a predictable cliche that someone in an Allen movie embarks on an ill-advised affair.

Conclusion

Through contemplating the nature of true talent, the ups and downs of the creative process, and refreshing performances by Cusak and Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway ultimately won me over and proves to be a real gem.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Mighty Aphrodite
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Manhattan Murder Mystery

IMDB: Bullets Over Broadway
Wikipedia: Bullets Over Broadway
Rotten Tomatoes: Bullets Over Broadway 96%

= 4 stars

Starring Diane Keaton, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

New York couple Larry (Woody Allen) and Carol Lipton (Diane Keaton) learn an elderly female neighbor has died. They suspect surviving husband Paul is guilty of foul play.

The Good

• Keaton’s first movie featuring Allen since Manhattan, and thankfully, their comic chemistry is retained. The couple’s age is acknowledged plot-wise, as Carol’s suspicions are met with skepticism due to the distinct possibility that she’s bored and just looking for some midlife adventure. There’s a message about rekindling excitement in a long-term relationship, and rediscovering teamwork to solve a problem.
• Some truly suspenseful moments: deft direction when Carol ill-advisedly sneaks into Paul’s apartment, and the final movie theater moments. Both the reality of the murder and its perpetrator are kept in doubt until late in the film, as with Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
• Some truly funny moments, my favorite comes near the end with Larry and Carol trapped in an elevator and some jealousy on Carol’s part of the dark, poker playing Marcia (Angelica Huston).

The Bad

• Much else feels rehashed from earlier films. Larry is indistinguishable from any other Allen character.
• The morality of the murder / mystery plot isn’t the focus: this adventure is all for laughs and anything sinister happens to folks other than the main characters.

Conclusion

A light, fun, farce that does the near-impossible: make an Annie Hall sequel seem like a somewhat good idea. Recommended.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Bullets Over Broadway
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Husbands And Wives

IMDB: Manhattan Murder Mystery
Wikipedia: Manhattan Murder Mystery
Rotten Tomatoes: Manhattan Murder Mystery 86%

= 3 stars

Port of an old-school computer game where you pick up as many crystals, avoiding an endless number of baddies trying to kill you.

The Good

• I originally played this game on an SE/30 in several vivid shades of gray, so the color in the classic mode plus the modern mode are welcome, new enhancements.
• Variety is achieved through a crazy amount of aliens (too many to list, but particularly scary are tentawarbles and parasites) with various death-dealing capabilities, and stuff to pick up (smart bombs, bonus points) or avoid (mines).
• Sound effects: same as the original, including the strange gasp when you exit a level, plus the addition of background music.
• A screen of options for music, sound effects, “swipe” (multitouch) control, and tilt control. Especially handy are volume / sensitivity options for all.

The Bad

• Not very satisfying controls. The original game relied on the mouse for movement, so the iPhone uses the multitouch screen instead. Unfortunately, entire screen is sensitive, meaning it’s easy to get your fingers in the way of the action. Also annoying: firing is achieved through a screen tap, which means taking a finger off of the screen. So continuous movement with a left thumb and firing with right thumb taps is problematic, as you end up having to lift your left thumb in order to fire. The best solution I’ve found, is to have both tilt controls and multitouch active (with the mutitouch set to a high sensitivity), so you can tilt the iPhone for large, arcing moves across the screen while stroking with a left thumb for finer control, and the right thumb for firing. Yeah, that sounds complicated, and a D-pad on both left and right would be a simpler solution.
• Price of $4.99 feels a bit high.

Conclusion

I have fond memories of Crystal Quest, but the slightly odd controls and the price put a damper on my nostalgia buzz. Recommended you loved the original, but if not, there are better games to spend your hard-earned five dollars on.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Starring Sydney Pollack, Judy Davis, Juliette Lewis
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Professor Gabe Roth (Woody Allen) and Judy (Mia Farrow) are surprised to learn that Sally (Judy Davis) and Jack (Sydney Pollack) are splitting up. Gabe and Judy examine their own marriage, as Gabe flirts with Rain, a much younger student (Juliette Lewis) and Judy falls for a co-worker, Michael (Liam Neeson).

The Good

• Allen employs the shaky-camera, documentary style, used previously in Take The Money and Run and Zelig to great effect. The documentary explores the reasons why a marriage succeeds or fails.
• Pollack and Davis are brilliant as the conflicted older couple Jack and Sally, and it’s neat to see how over the course of the movie, they seem different yet well suited for each other. Dark humor prevails when both re-enter the dating scene: Jack’s hooks up with an astrology-nut aerobics instructor, and Sally mentions her metabolic difficulties when manly Michael initially puts the moves on her, while later contemplating hedgehogs and foxes.
• The rough, heavy subject matter of infidelity, sexual problems, and people drifting apart, but thankfully, really have at it with visceral arguments instead repression and wallowing in their misery (Interiors, September), making for an uncomfortable but more visually alive movie. One argument between Jack and his new astrology-fascinated aerobics instructor girlfriend (Lysette Anthony) is blisteringly cathartic, distasteful, and grimly funny all at once.
• Real life intersects reel life: At the time of filming, Allen was on the outs with then wife Mia Farrow, and certain scenes of their characters bickering were filmed as the real life couple fell apart. One can only wonder if the Farrow character’s eventual evaluation as a passive-aggressive, manipulative woman is a condemnation of Farrow herself. One also can’t avoid seeing suggestions of Allen’s relationship with the much younger Soon Yi Previn (his stepdaughter) in the ill-advised relationship between Gabe and younger student Rain. There’s an intimate moment where they kiss at a party during a blackout, indicating an absence of the watchful eyes of God. Here, Allen the director knows what Gabe is doing is wrong, but his heart tells him otherwise.

The Bad

• I didn’t care for Julliete Lewis as Rain, the much younger student of Gabe’s. Based on her portrayal, it’s difficult to see what Gabe sees in her, other than a lack of better options, and her age.

Conclusion

Despite the awkward and disappointing Lewis, Husbands And Wives contains great performances on the part of Pollack and Davis, who make the film worth watching. Also mesmerizing is the inevitable overlay of Allen’s personal life. With its documentary style, it feels self-conscious, in that certain scenes seem intended to answer questions about his own infidelities. Yet despite Allen’s attempt to be as open as possible, he tells about 75% of the story but leaves the last bit out, not really answering the question, and literally saying, “can I go now?”. It’s simultaneously frustrating yet engrossing, which in my eyes, makes for a great movie.

IMDB: Husbands And Wives
Wikipedia: Husbands And Wives
Rotten Tomatoes: Husbands And Wives 100%

= 2 stars

Starring Mia Farrow, John Cusack, John Malkovich
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Kleinman (Woody Allen) is drafted by concerned citizens to hunt for a mysterious serial killer. Meanwhile, a traveling circus brings a clown (John Malkovich) and his sword-swallower wife (Mia Farrow) close to mortal danger in the foggy night.

The Good

• Amusing idea; the Allen persona is dropped into a black and white, spooky foreign film reminiscent of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal or Fritz Lang’s M.
• Some amusement in considering characters as symbolic: The mysterious murderer is death. Kleinman bribes both a policeman and priest, represeenting Allen’s disappointment in both institutions. At film’s end, Allen hooks up with a magician who uses illusions in an attempt to trap the murderer. The magician believes people need his illusions like air - surely a fellow filmmaker.
• A few moments of wistful Allen observeration - Farrow and Allen look out upon the fog - she concentrates on its beauty while he focuses on its transience.

The Bad

• Perhaps for the first time, the ensemble of actors seems more ensemble’s sake and not for casting reasons. As in, does John Malkovich make a good clown, Jodie Foster a good whore, and Madonna a trapeeze artist? Based on the results, the answer is no.
• Allen’s themes seem lost and meandering, just like the characters stumbling about in the fog.
• Allen begins to be self-referential, and not in a good way. In a whorehouse scene, the camera circles around to the various women similarly to Hannah And Her Sisters but without the same pogniancy or purpose. The whorehouse in The Purple Rose Of Cairo had more of a point, plot-wise.

Conclusion

While stylistically amusing, the characters, plot, and acting all failed me here. Only recommended for deeper Allen fans.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Husbands And Wives
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Alice

= 4 stars

Toss paper balls (crumpled up sheets of 8 1/2 x 11) into a wastebasket with varying distances and wind conditions.

The Good

• Super simple game play: just swipe toward the waste basket from the bottom of the screen to launch the paper ball toward its target. The complicating matter is a fan sitting to either side that blows at a different speed during each toss. The wind direction and strength is given to you beneath the waste basket, but that doesn’t make things easy. Points are scored through consecutive baskets - one miss and your score resets to zero.
• Tiny details make the game: most satisfying is a “rim shot” where the ball bounces off the wastebasket rim. occasionally saving a close throw. Other details are subtly subversive: the background depicts a cubicle office setting (complete with monitors displaying Windows XP), giving one the giggly feeling of goofing off at work.

The Bad

• The distance of your upward swipe has no effect on the toss distance. Therefore, the game is all about your initial swipe angle, based on the fan speed. A higher number means leaning your swipe further to either side.
• Not much variety beyond the tossing concept. The paper balls don’t interact with the other office furniture in any way, so bank shots off of a cubicle wall or file cabinet aren’t possible. Even the subversive sense of humor could be expanded upon: would be amusing to see the balls ricochet off potted plants or on desks, or be persistent so the office slowly got filled with your ridiculous balls.

Conclusion

Paper Toss is a simple idea realized well, resulting in a game more addictive than it has any right to be. Plus: it’s free. May the subversive goofing off commence.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Starring Mia Farrow, William Hurt, Joe Mantegna
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Alice Tate (Mia Farrow), a wealthy but bored Manhattan housewife, contemplates leaving her husband (William Hurt) after some mysterious treatments by an acupuncturist.

The Good

• Farrow shines as the central character, showing a wide range of emotions and juggling practically evey looney idea Allen throws her way.
• First appearance of an occult, otherworldly experience that the main character encounters which changes their perception of the world. This “occult” theme pops up again in Curse Of The Jade Scorpion and Scoop for example. The setup results in a few funny situations, namely the invisibility herb, and a misused love potion.
• Begins with Allen’s typical “let’s have an affair” situation, but ends in a different - and better - place. Some good thoughts on the illogical nature of romance, and finding a life’s purpose beyond materialism and marriage.

The Bad

• A bit overlong - several scenes could have been completely excised or used some editing, namely Alice meeting an old boyfriend.
• Alice’s acupuncturist Mr. Yang is portrayed an antiquated, xenophobic, 1930s style manner, with a halting accent. At one point his office is filled with opium smokers. There may have been some gongs and pentatonic scales.
• None of the aforementioned themes gets the full attention they deserve.

Conclusion

While Alice has some interesting thoughts and moments in its condemnation of the upper class boredom and lack of inner passion, it’s not told in the most entertaining fashion and suffers from a lack of focus. Thankfully, Farrow does a remarkable job and ultimately, earns that extra star.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Shadows And Fog
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Crimes And Misdemeanors

IMDB: Alice
Wikipedia: Alice
Rotten Tomatoes: Alice

= 5 stars

Starring Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Alan Alda
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Judah (Martin Landau) unsuccessfully tries to end an affair with stewardess Dolores (Anjelica Huston), who is increasingly getting out of hand and threatening to expose everything to his wife. Meanwhile, Cliff (Woody Allen) is filming a documentary starring his successful brother in law Lester (Alan Alda), and finding it to be extremely stressful.

The Good

• I’ve watched this movie many times with a few years’ between each viewing, and this time it flew by. The drama gets going after the first scene when Judah finds a letter written by his lover, Dolores. When he throws it into a fireplace, we know his initial instinct is to avoid the situation through whatever means possible. The rest of the movie documents how far he’s willing to go.
• Solid cast: Martin Landau, who sells Judah’s inner conflict and increasing worry, lending the film tension. Even when he does what we wouldn’t dare, we believe his character would because of Landau’s performance. Huston is equally compelling as the “other woman” - her passion and naiveté makes it clear why Judah was initially attracted to her, yet why she becomes a problem. On the comic side, Alan Alda is pitch perfect as Lester, an obnoxious entertainment guy that is the antitheses of Cliff (Woody Allen). Lester gets some of the film’s funniest wrong-headed lines, including “if it bends, it’s funny. If it breaks, it’s not funny,” and “comedy is tragedy plus time,” both met by Cliff’s eye-rolling.
• In both the dramatic and comic plots, Allen tackles the issue of religion, more specifically, is there a God, and in the absence of God, can morality exist? On the humorous side, Cliff is working on a documentary by an uncharacteristically optimistic philosophy professor. Meanwhile, on the dramatic side, Judah contemplates having Dolores bumped off, hiring his shady brother in law Jack, causing Judah to feel extremely guilty and paranoid, sending him on a soul-searching journey back to his religious upbringing. Judah also seeks solace from a patient who is a Rabbi (Sam Waterston) who is slowly going blind (symbolism duly noted). The other overarching question is if someone were able to commit a crime and get away with it, could they continue to live life, or would the guilt weigh on them until their own demise?
• A few amazingly directed scenes that still send chills down my spine: Dolores threatening to expose Judah’s financial embezzlement while her head is hidden behind a black object, a camera panning down to a face on the floor set to Schubert’s String Quartet #15 in G, and Judah answering a phone call in the middle of the night - only to hear no-one on the other end.
• A pretty dark conclusion, in an amazing scene, commenting on reality vs. tragedy and the fantasy of movies vs. reality.

The Bad

N/A.

Conclusion

Crimes And Misdemeanors was the first movie that really got me interested in Woody Allen. Here, he really perfected a balance between comedy and drama, and also managed some maturity through contemplation of morality and religion, within the simple framework of a man deciding to commit a murder and having us wonder if he’ll get away with it. The chill of a tense Judah answering that one phone call still disturbs me to this day.

If you liked Match Point, give this one a spin because it’s a similar story, arguably told in a more entertaining way. Another one of my favorite Allen films.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Alice
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Another Woman

My overall feeling while viewing these ads was confusion. They’re surreal, with bizarre, hard-to-remember acronyms and visual nonsense, none of which has anything to do with computers, let alone a web browser. In this one, the “expert” is holding a rubber band ball. Why? No reason whatsoever as far as I can tell.

Then we have the vomiting ad, which is so crass that all I’ll remember is the vomiting. So my brand association is: Microsoft = vomit. And Microsoft must know they screwed up, since the ad has been pulled.

I think these ads resort to nonsense because there are few, concrete, demonstrable reasons to use IE over Firefox or Safari. So these ads just present constantly moving confusion in the hopes they’ll work as brand awareness.

Meanwhile, this chart promoting IE 8 (hat tip to Steven Hodson) over at Microsoft’s own website sports similar nonsense. IE 8 is marked the winner in several questionable criteria (no doubt hand-picked by Microsoft themselves), and where other browsers are better, the reasons simply don’t matter. Particularly lame are the performance and web standards entries:

“Web Standards: Firefox and Chrome have more support for emerging standards like HTML5 and CSS3, but Internet Explorer 8 invested heavily in having world-class, consistent support for the entire CSS2.1 specification.”

“Performance: Knowing the top speed of a car doesn’t tell you how fast you can drive in rush hour. To actually see the difference in page loads between all three browsers, you need slow-motion video. This one’s also a tie.”

Meanwhile, IE8 fails the Acid 3 test, and on fails performance (especially JavaScript). So Microsoft says those don’t really matter. Uh-huh.

Kind of reminds me of the old “confuse a cat” skit from Monty Python, quite frankly…

= 2 stars

Starring Geena Rowlands, Ian Holm, Mia Farrow
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Graduate school administrator Marion (Gena Rowlands) is writing a book, when she starts hearing the private confessions of patients in the neighboring psychiatrist’s office. She begins contemplating her marriage to Ken (Ian Holm) and former love, Larry (Gene Hackman).

The Good

• A worthy point: intellectual pursuits can lead to a life lacking in passion.

The Bad

• Dull: the main character takes stock of her life and realizes where things probably went awry. But ultimately, her course of action, while internally logical and realistic, is nothing special.

Conclusion

Ultimately I found the movie a bit too somber for my tastes. Although Allen, again, excises himself from the film almost completely and tries to do a straight drama as with Interiors and Septemeber, this outing is missing heart and therefore entertainment. Ultimately, it’s a bit embarassing how a film condemning intellectual posturing and advocation passion comes off as rather pretentious in and of itself. Do as I say, not as I show, I suppose.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Crimes And Misdemeanors
Previous Woody Allen Movie: September

= 2 stars

Starring Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Sam Waterston
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Insular Lane (Mia Farrow) moves to a country house with her friend Stephanie (Dianne Wiest) and boisterous mother Diane (Elaine Stritch). Things become complicated when writer Peter (Sam Waterston) and French teacher Howard (Denholm Elliot) arrive - it’s soon clear that everyone is in love with everyone else. Soon, Lane’s dark past comes to the forefront once again.

The Good

• The ensemble cast does its best with some really turgid material. Elaine Stritch is awesome as the domineering mother, and particularly affecting is Dianne Wiest (another entry in a surprising amount of range over several Allen films) and Sam Waterston as a quiet, serious precence. Then there’s the suicidal Lane, and Farrow digs deep to pull up some impressive emotional depth.
• After a lot of mucking about, things comes to a head and everything unmentioned (specifically, Lane’s “dark past”) bursts out into the open.
• Early on, Peter (Sam Waterson) establishes a clear theme - when faced with tragedy, some people rise above, while others remain trapped in the past. Diane is the former while her daughter, Lane, the latter.

The Bad

• Allen’s direction is surprisingly standoffish, merely observing the characters from a safe distance, and things often resemble a play.
• Several older people mulling about a house, drinking, wanting to sleep with each other, while pontificating on life and wallowing in problems of little significance outside their four walls. Certainly not entertaining.

Conclusion

I found this film tough going. Take the lustiness of A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, run through the filter of Interiors, and subtract all the admirable Allen directing style from Hannah And Her Sisters. Yes, there’s some good acting, emotional drama, and a pay off of sorts, but like Neil LaBute’s movies, I don’t think the ending was worth the wait. Skip it.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Another Woman
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Radio Days

IMDB: September
Wikipedia: September
Rotten Tomatoes: September 64%

For starters, I must admit: I was (and still am) addicted to social media. I’ll take the blame myself, although its constant presence on my iPhone (via Twitter clients and BuddyFeed) didn’t help matters. The urge to check out “what’s going on right now” was omnipresent, and often indulged.

Anyhow, I once was a smoker, and did manage to quit smoking several years ago - by going cold turkey. So that’s one strategy, but I’m leaning towards moderation first, and seeing if that works.

Inspired by Scoble’s post (Craving intimacy in social networks, where he polls his spouse) - I asked my wife how she uses Facebook. She, in real life, is several times more social and gregarious than I am. She talks to strangers, makes friends easily, and enjoys parties. But despite her social nature, she’s not hooked on all this social media stuff. After a bit of chatting, here’s her usage:

• Only friends and follows people she knows in real life, therefore a handful of people.
• Keeps everything private.
• Doesn’t think anybody would (or should) be interested in the mundane stuff she does on a daily basis, therefore doesn’t get the point of Twitter or FriendFeed.
• Isn’t interested in meeting new people online.
• As a result, checks Facebook every three days.

Based on the above, I think the key is number 1. By limiting friends and followers to real world folks, you place an upper limit on friends and followers, and avoid the “popularity contests” that result in quantity over quality.

Her modus operandi (which I would consider representative of a normal, mainstream user) could be summed up by one statement: social media is best used as a supplement to existing relationships, not a replacement for them. She uses it to enhance relationships with offline, real world friends, vs. a place to make new ones.

Perhaps her social media strategy is best illustrated with a simple diagram, loosely inspired by Louis Gray’s (hope he doesn’t mind):

I think what I need to start doing is getting my social media life back in tune with reality. It’s got to be less of a priority, more of a supplement, and less of an constant presence. The biggest bit of evidence that it’s out of whack? In the past year, I never once asked my wife - who isn’t stressed out or overwhelmed - how she uses social media, preferring instead to listen to any number of self-professed experts online, instead.

Now that I’ve written that down, it’s rather embarrassing, and lame. Like I said in the headline, I feel I’ve been doing it all wrong.

Lastly, I find it amusing is that my wife - who as mentioned before, is several magnitudes more social than I am in the offline world - has been using social media less than I, an admittedly anti-social person who has strangely been using it to an excess. It’s no surprise I got burned out.

Cool just for the synopsis outline of Wall Street II.

This one dude didn’t like Up, a movie which practically everyone else really enjoyed. Both the review and comments beneath are worth reading just to entertain a contrarian opinion and witness a hostile reaction.

If David Lynch directed Dirty Dancing.

Another amusingly contrarian opinion: provided you still have a job, the recession is actually a pretty good time to score some great deals on crap you haven’t already bought (houses, cars, flat panel televisions). The flip side of the recession.

Shatner gives Conan the finger.

Making movies from board games. Do not want…

David Fincher might direct a Facebook movie.

Is this article a joke?

R U a webdesigner and BSG fan?

Chuqui 3.0 shares his personal weight loss experience. His diet tips are helpful for everyone:

Why an emergency fund is preferable to credit cards, or any sort of loan.

A burnt out programmer.

Review of a leaked TRON 2 script.

Best of Twitter.

Play Helen off, Keyboard cat.

= 3 stars

Starring Julie Kavner, Dianne Wiest, Mia Farrow
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

A heartwarming nostalgia trip to World War II America when radio was a primary form of entertainment.

The Good

• Overarching theme of nostalgia, and Allen’s love for radio. The film is a period piece, and has a structure is a serious of moderately amusing bits. It’s almost a return to Allen’s earlier films containing bit comedy (Take The Money And Run) but applying the higher production values and a period settings of others (The Purple Rose Of Cairo).
• Instead of the Allen character, we have Allen’s narration and a much younger kid (Seth Green) playing Allen as a young boy. Also worth noting is Diane Keaton’s appearance near film’s end as a singer.
• While the film is overwhelmingly comic, there are some needed splashes of seriousness: Aunt Bea’s unsuccessful searches for love, and a sudden, jarring radio news broadcast of a girl who has fallen down a well.

The Bad

• Probably due to my age, the radio theme wasn’t enough to sustain my interest, plus the overarching focus on radio seems to override the characters.

Conclusion

Radio Days is festooned a glittery, professional sheen, but at this point in Allen’s career I can’t help but expect more. It’s particularly telling that as a climax, we’re offered Diane Keaton singing a song, which calls up nostalgic memories for Allen’s earlier Annie Hall - making me feel that most likely, listening to the genuine article would be better than the homage presented here.

Next Woody Allen Movie: September
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Hannah And Her Sisters

IMDB: Radio Days
Wikipedia: Radio Days
Rotten Tomatoes: Radio Days 95%

The Good

• Largely met my personal list of expected expansions based on my viewing of the television show: How Cooper became an agent (check), the backstory of Windom Earle and his wife, Caroline, and even small details like who is Diane, Dennis (later Denise) Bryson, Gordon Cole, Cooper’s love for coffee (a college sweetheart introduces him to various brews) and pie.
• Captures that peculiar Twin Peaks mix of naivete and horror. Cole is a real loner as a youth, and his lack of worldly knowledge adds a fish out of water humor (particularly funny is his experience hitch-hiking home from a scout camp, and his first young love with the slightly older, drug-dabbling born-again Marie). Horror is deftly inserted at various points: how he comes across his mother’s ring, an arsonist college sweetheart, and his first few cases as a new F.B.I agent. Certain chill-inducing events - like the television show - are never explained (a man “painted blue” that appears outside Cooper’s window). Especially creepy are entire passages and even years transcribed as “erased” or “missing,” leaving unspeakable things to the imagination.

The Bad

• In the book, Cooper investigates the Teresa Banks murder in southwest Washington, which contradicts the depiction of that case in the movie, Fire Walk With Me, where Chester Desmond leads an investigation, while Cooper is back in Philadelphia.
• As Cooper’s entire lifetime was spent outside of Twin Peaks, none of that town’s unique denizens appear. There is only the tantalizing glimpse of the pacific Northwest in the final few pages.

Conclusion

If you’ve watched the television series and are hungry for more, this book provides that and then some. Damn good pie - I mean book.

I feel the comparison of FriendFeed to a venereal disease is taking things a bit far. I personally like my analogy FriendFeed as a loud cocktail party or the personally uncomfortable situation of jocks and cheerleaders having loud sex on a UNIX workstation, but now that I think about it, the spread of syphilis could occur via either of my analogies as an unintended result.

However the sexual disease analogy could work in one sense - prevention could be part of the cure. FriendFeed could do more to prevent mobs from forming in the first place.

I see one clear location for a condom. FriendFeed could do comments better. Comments on FriendFeed just appear in a big long column beneath an item - that’s it. This isn’t very robust, especially in comparison with blog commenting services like Disqus, Intense Debate, or other social sites like Digg and Reddit.  At the very least, FriendFeed should have threaded comments so commenters can reply to other comments. Each comment should have a rating, so ridiculous ones would eventually be voted down by the community and “buried.” Users could also filter the comments they see, by hiding comments rated below a threshold. FriendFeed may also need some good old fashioned human help through a community manager.

It feels odd to mention any of this, since these features are obvious - they’ve been around for years in online communities as solutions to moderate trolls and mobs. I just hope there isn’t a technical reason why FriendFeed hasn’t implemented any of this yet (possible, as threaded and rated comments could get pretty complicated in “real time.”). But I definitely think better comment tools would improve FriendFeed.

Another observation by Arrington is a little more troubling - the tendency of individuals to make inflammatory statements without the shield of anonymity. In the past, the linkage to a true identity would be enough to prevent such behavior - and worrying, this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

But I’m reminded of the depressing, occasional situation, where some perpetrator of a crime is caught because they stupidly searched for tips on Google beforehand. You can bet that someday, some retarded robber will tweet, “What’s the best freeway to take to (xxx)” followed by, “I’m breaking into this really cool house right now!” and “Murder…”

I suppose that’s the only upside to folks with non-anonymous profiles leaving inflammatory comments and forming threatening mobs on social sites - they will certainly be easier to hold accountable and catch if need be.

And I mean “catch” in the physical, real world sense - not as in syphilis.

I’ve basically decided my involvement in social media over the past few years has been a very mixed bag, and on a deeper level - somewhat of a farce.

In the offline world, away from the Internet, I am a loner; an introvert. I have no qualms using the negative descriptor “anti-social.” While I have a core group of friends, co-workers, family, and a loving wife and two cats - I don’t travel much beyond a sphere of a handful of people - I like a small circle. I get stressed out when in large groups, and socializing tends to be a distraction from a long list of productive things I could be doing alone. I’m at my best “one on one,” dislike having more than one or two scheduled “social events” in a week, and literally need alone time to “re-charge” by myself.

Fellow introverts should be nodding their heads in familiar agreement.

Blog?

But wait, you write this blog. Isn’t that the definition of egotism and extroversion? Well, not in my case. My posts have always been opining on movies and technology and Apple stuff. What I don’t blog about should be revealing: I don’t write about my day job, family, or personal life - basically the vast majority of my life. The above paragraphs are the most personal ones I’ve written in the past year. Privacy is constantly on my mind and the blog displays only one small slice of my personality, and not often mentioned in my daily, offline life. I keep a pretty tight wall between online and offline.

So why blog? Truth be told, it’s more to keep track of my own thoughts in database form. So I can look back on all the movies I’ve seen and figure out which are the best. I’d continue this way for years - with the comments shut off - and be pretty well satisfied.

Pretending To Be Something I’m Not

With all that as a preface - my involvement in social media began as a means to introduce the Internet at large to some solitary obsessions. But in the process of promoting the blog, has turned in a rather disingenuous game, where I pretend to be “social”: interested, open, welcoming thousands of followers, mesmerized by sparkling conversation - when I deep down, I could care less. I also admit to feeling that by being social online, it might get me to come out of my shell and become more social in real life.

Well, that never happened. Actually, it’s probably made things worse as far as the offline world is concerned.

I’m at the point where there’s no point in trying to turn an orange into an apple. This is some testament to how “social” the online world has become - it mimics real life so well that I find myself getting uncomfortable and annoyed in the same manner during a social event in the “real world.” FriendFeed is literally, often like a cocktail party, with tons of people chatting and tossing opinions about - I don’t feel comfortable at parties.

(Looking back with some navel-gazing, this explains my history of “quitting” services. I quit Twitter, quit Facebook, and quit Google Reader - all social, popularity tracking stuff. Meanwhile, I’ve stuck with movies, television, and iPhone apps - largely solitary activities.)

The Cat Nerd At The UNIX Workstation

Lastly: I first got into computers back in the eighties as a teenager, partly because that’s what introverted kids, who weren’t interested in popularity contests (sports) did. Very pleasing was operating in an electronic world that one could control alone. When you get into creation (music, art, programming), you are the master of your own domain, the creator of your own cosmos.

Things were just peachy for years, until the Internet started taking over. For a while, it was all manageable through email and a browser, but then a few years ago, all this social stuff started piling on. This whole deal with “followers” is a simulation of the very popularity contests (sports) I avoid.

Looking back, I got into computers to get away from people. Now “everyone else” has showed up and thinks computers are communication tools; a socializing wonderland.

The computer lab has been invaded by jocks and cheerleaders, throwing a party, maybe having loud sex on a workstation or something. Meanwhile, one nerd in the corner (who loves cats - doesn’t that say it all?) just wants to get some coding done, and wonders what the heck happened to the peace and quiet.

= 5 stars

Starring Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Michael Caine
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Hannah’s (Mia Farrow) husband Elliot (Michael Caine) initiates an affair with his sister-in-law Lee (Barbara Hershey). Meanwhile, Hannah’s hypochondrica ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) contemplates his own death, and other siter Holly (Diane Wiest) struggles to form an idenity for herself.

The Good

• The dramatic core is provided by Elliot’s stupid pursuit of Lee. Although it plays out in charmingly naive ways, there is an undercurrent of heartbreak, as Lee is currently living with a reclusive artist Frederick (Max Von Sydow) with a cynical view of life. His heartbreak when Lee begins to move on to someone new. Much of the film’s tension is provided by wondering if Hannah will realize Elliot’s affair with her own sister, culminating in an extremely tense and amazing scene where the three sisters lunch together and the camera circles around their faces.
• Trademark Allen humor in Mickey’s, Hannah’s divorced husband (his involvement with the sisters is minimal). Mickey may have a brain tumor and undergoes a series of medical tests, fraught with worry, and eventually must come to some acceptance of death and find a way to live a full life with the knowledge that it will all, inevitably, come to an end. And yes, somehow, Allen manages to play morbidity for laughs.
• Through a deft balance of the above two, Allen again hits a tantalizing balance of humor and drama. And while it’s easy to say Elliot’s thread is “serious” while Mickey’s “funny”, each thread has careful dashes of the opposite - Elliot’s naivete provides his drama with some comic levity, and because Mickey’s main contemplation is hopelessness and death, there is a serious undercurrent.
• I was duly impressed by Allen’s economical direction. Through simple film techniques, he communicates the story: when Frederick is first introduced, he’s sitting at a desk, hidden behind a plastic sheet, reinforcing his reclusive nature. When Elliot flirts with Lee in a bookstore and gives her a particular book, the two characters move between book aisles, speaking to each other off-camera, in a visual chase. When Hannah and Holly go shopping together, and Holly begins to feel goaded and trapped by Hannah’s unintentionally cruel advice, Holly’s face appears small and trapped behind a pole. Elliot and Hannah’s eventual confrontation takes place in cramped bathroom, echoing Elliot’s marital confinement. It’s all amazing visual stuff. Also effectively used are narration to reveal characters’ inner thoughts, and title cards for different sections.
• Begs comparison with the much darker and less successful Interiors, which also dealt with three sisters, suffocated with seriousness, and heavy-handed visual games. Most notable is the contrast between the sisters’ parents - in Interiors they’re like an embalmed funeral, while in Hannah dad plays old show tunes. I might even go so far as to consider Interiors a first draft of Hannah, with the most powerful improvement the introduction of heart and humor to ease the gloom. There’s also an inevitable comparison with the other Allen movies I consider 5 stars - in some ways Hannah improves on Annie Hall because the Allen persona is concerned with the greater, universal issue of mortality (in addition to romance), and the older man - younger woman relationship from Manhattan is explored to greater effect through Frederick and Lee.

The Bad

N/A.

Conclusion

Hannah And Her Sisters is Woody Allen in his prime, and one of my favorite Allen movies. Highly recommended.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Radio Days
Previous Woody Allen Movie: The Purple Rose Of Cairo

IMDB: Hannah And Her Sisters
Wikipedia: Hannah And Her Sisters
Rotten Tomatoes: Hannah And Her Sisters 93%

= 5 stars

Starring Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges, Danny Aiello
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Waitress Cecilia (Mia Farrow) obsessively goes to movies to escape the dreariness of her marriage during the Great Depression. After watching The Purple Rose Of Cairo several times in one day, the character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) steps off the screen and into her life.

The Good

• Woody Allen doesn’t appear. As with Interiors, he steps behind the camera completely, giving full reign to Farrow and the rest of the cast, namely Jeff Daniels (playing a dual role, and sings!) and Danny Aiello as the doofus-goomba husband. The film is better without the sometimes overbearing Allen persona.
• The film leverages much of the knowledge Allen gained in previous films - use of black and white is expert, as is the period setting of the Great Depression.
• A love story to the escapism of movies, and a dramatization of some of Allen’s concerns regarding the meaning of cinema in Stardust Memories. The fantasy of film is crossed when a film character enters the real world, but meanwhile, the character’s actor is an already existing, real person. It’s easy to get caught up in the fantasy of film - we fall in love with particular characters - and not the actors behind the persona. The ultimate amusement is all the characters in this very film are fictional. Some fun is had trying to keep the movie within the movie straight from the “real” part, and lines like Danny Aiello’s protestation that this is “real life” - when his character is a fiction as view by our eyes - are doubly ironic.
• After the initial romance of a movie star coming to life passes, Allen doesn’t hide from the idea that it’s all a fantasy. The character has totally unrealistic ideas of their life together, and then the actor who plays the character appears, complicating things further. The ending is therefore, pitch perfect, as a warning of mixing reality and. fantasy. Yet, the love for movies perseveres.

The Bad

• A whorehouse bit goes on a tad long.

Conclusion

I’ve always loved The Purple Rose Of Cairo, but viewing Allen’s films in chronological order highlights how he had to steadily work up to this point. By this time, Allen proves a solid enough director to give Farrow a shining role, plus add commentary on the nature of film fantasy vs. reality amid loving nostalgia for cinema within the frame of an entertaining story. One of Allen’s best.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Hannah And Her Sisters
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Broadway Danny Rose

IMDB: The Purple Rose Of Cairo
Wikipedia: The Purple Rose Of Cairo
Rotten Tomatoes: The Purple Rose Of Cairo 90%

= 4 stars

Starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Danny Rose (Woody Allen) is a borscht-belt theatrical agent managing C-list singer Lou (Nick Apollo Forte), whose girlfriend (Mia Farrow) Tina gets everyone in trouble with the Mafia.

The Good

• Allen combines pre-Annie Hall comedy with the Manhattan black-and-white style - it works better than it should.
• The show-biz angle featuring questionable talent proves entertaining, especially overweight, Goomba-singer Lou, but along the way, we also meet the world’s worst ventriloquist and a man in a superhero suit.
• Mia Farrow is great as a Mafia moll, hidden behind sunglasses and blonde hair-do.
• A refreshing lack of self-consciousness: Allen drops the highbrow aping of Fellini and Bergman, and presents a simple story containing characters designed to evoke a smile.

The Bad

• Unnecessary entry point of a group of comedians recanting Danny Rose’s story at Carnegie’s Deli.
• Despite consistently great set-ups, the jokes never really explode into laugh-out loud funny.
• The final emotional payoff takes a while to become clear, but personally, felt bittersweet and too late.

Conclusion

Broadway Danny Rose is an interesting and surprisingly successful amalgam of several of Allen’s earlier films - the slapstick chases of Sleeper, the simplistic black-and-white of Manhattan, the freaks of Stardust Memories, plus Mia Farrow. While the film never becomes completely moving in its own right, it’s a surprisingly even, optimistic movie, and frankly, a minor miracle that such a mish-mash works as well as it does.

Next Woody Allen Movie: The Purple Rose Of Cairo
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Zelig

IMDB: Broadway Danny Rose
Wikipedia: Boradway Danny Rose
Rotten Tomatoes: Broadway Danny Rose 100%

Well, there’s more to the story. Start on the Routesy website. Then, according to an article at SF Appeal, “NextBus Information Systems” claims ownership of the arrival time data. Ken Schmier, the CEO of this two-person company, contacted the Routesy developer (in true iPhone app tradition, just one person, Steven Peterson) and then Apple directly, saying that: “NextBus Information Systems Inc. is the sole agent for commercial use of the NextBus real-time prediction data in the United States and has exclusive rights to distribution of this data to mobile phones. The Routesy application downloads and republishes this copyrighted data which is damaging to us.”

But MUNI and NextBus Information Systems disagree on what this data ownership really means, and its exclusivity. According to an SF Weekly article, although Schmier patented the NextBus system back in 1996, a MUNI spokesperson says the city owns the Muni-related data, adding that “independent developers should have unfettered access to develop whatever nifty little apps they want.” That sounds to me like Routesy is a go.

My take: MUNI is screwed up enough as it is. With money woes, reliability problems, and hundreds of fare dodgers sneaking in through back doors - it needs all the help it can get. An iPhone app created by a developer at no expense on MUNI’s part, that encourages and boosts ridership and hence paying customers, should be welcomed and encouraged.

That “no expense” part is pretty key. Does anybody seriously believe the government would create a better app? Surely, if MUNI themselves, or worse - this NextBus Information Systems were to develop their own version - it would cost millions, arrive late, be sold for $1.00 and slowly creep upwards in 50 cent increments annually - until it slows down, crashes, and vanishes without a trace. With the California budget crisis raging - the city should save the money and go with free.

So MUNI - your buses disappear without a trace too often as it is. Please don’t make Routesy disappear, too.

(Thanks to reader Dave for sending me the research on what the heck happened to Routesy).

I’d been slowly sliding towards pulling the plug for the past few months, ever since the redesign which left me cold. I was once a passionate FriendFeed user, even wildly comparing it to Google. But passion slipped away and I became just a user. Now I’m not even that. And a great sense of relief and anxiousness has lifted.

The basics:

• “Community” and “conversation” are not the killer apps I once thought. I used to participate in Usenet forums back in the day, as well as dabbling in MUDs and MMPORGs. But I don’t participate in those communities, anymore. With each, there was a point where it just got tiresome. I see similarities to FriendFeed - they’ve done a great job of creating a vibrant, constantly changing place for people to communicate in real-time. After a time dabbling in these communities that annoy me as well as entertain, I inevitably start asking myself what I’m getting out of association with these people. Inevitably, the answer is always: not much. Plus, most online communities have a nasty habit turning into a mob surprisingly quickly (perceived anonimity of the Internet). Recent run-ins on FriendFeed have included Rizzin, TechCrunch, and now Brazell. I was never the target of a mob, but just seeing their rise and fall is enough of a turn off. Perhaps FriendFeed needs a community manager.
• Facebook and Twitter pretty much cover everything. Facebook has literally, everyone on it. I have found Twitter’s non-commital, lack of conversation and community a positive. If you fail to participate for months and nobody cares. Twitter is a communication tool; it’s not a place to hang out. Or if you want to hang out, use Facebook. I’m not convinced anymore, that there is an inevitable, evolutionary path that users will follow, from Facebook, to Twitter, and then FriendFeed. I’ve heard many Facebook users say they see no point in Twitter. Sow how will they ever get to FriendFeed? If they don’t get Twitter I can’t with a straight face, suggest FriendFeed.
• Jon and Kate Plus 8: I have never watched a single episode of the popular television show Jon and Kate Plus 8. However, because of their recent divorce, my curiosity was piqued. In about half an hour online, I learned everything I ever wanted to know about Jon and Kate Plus 8, and now feel no need to ever watch the show; it’s not for me. Did I miss out by not watching the show for the past five years, or at any point in the future? As far as I’m concerned, no. I’ve saved a lot of time and energy by not being a regular viewer over the past several years. Last year, I quit Twitter, and this year, returned to it. What did I miss? Like Jon and Kate Plus 8 - absolutely nothing as far as I can tell. Same with FriendFeed. If in a year or two, FriendFeed is as big as Twitter is today (doubtful), I may give it a second shot. But I’ll take the bet that in the meantime, I won’t miss anything important. Because: anything worth hearing about, appears on Twitter or Facebook.

All of this, is enough for me to give FriendFeed a rest for the time being.

= 3 stars

Starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Documentary profiling Zelig (Woody Allen), a human chameleon, who takes on the personality and appearance of those in his immediate vicinity.

The Good

• Allen returns to the documentary format, first used in Take The Money And Run (there’s a nod to the previous film in the transformation into a Rabbi), but to contemplate the more serious and romantic subjects of ego and personality. The mockumentary style is kept extremely straight and is rarely satirical. The humor lies in the ridiculous of the subject matter instead of Allen’s early slapstick antics. It’s a subtler precursor to the Christopher Guest mockumentaries (Spinal Tap, Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman).
• Very subtle yet effective special effects are used to insert Allen and Farrow into old newsreel footage. Add precursor to Forrest Gump as Zelig travels through history.
• Zelig is a literal embodiment of a person who wants so desperately to fit in, that they lose their own personality. The ramifications of Dr. Eudora (Mia Farrow) falling in love with Zelig - who mimics her - means she is partly falling for herself.

The Bad

• Requires buying into the premise of a chameleon-man and a nostalgia trip through the early twentieth century. If neither subject matter amuses you, there’s nothing else to grab hold of.
• Despite the shortest running time of any Allen movie (79 minutes), it drags as society turns against Zelig.

Conclusion

Introverts everywhere will recognize Zelig’s ability to mold one’s personality to fit present company. That, plus Allen’s further exploration of film techniques and the “mockumentary,” makes Zelig worth a rental.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Broadway Danny Rose
Previous Woody Allen Movie: A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

IMDB: Zelig
Wikipedia: Zelig
Rotten Tomatoes: Zelig 100%

= 3 stars

iPhone version of the old-school Apple game Through The Looking Glass, developed for the original Macintosh computer.

The Good

• Simple, straightforward game play:”eat” all the opposing chess pieces as quickly as possible. On the first level, you (the Alice character) starts out with the moves of a queen, and each subsequent level reduces your moving ability until you reach the hobbled ability of a pawn. Adding to the challenge: the moves happen in real time, as opposed to merely alternating in standard chess.
• Some variety is added through different game speeds which add difficulty, and different game piece designs, displaying some irreverence - you get hip hop and “Bush memorial pieces” where your opponents are caricatures of the former administration, and the sound effect each time one of them is removed is an Obama “Yes we can.”
• The nostalgia element is pretty high for those of us that remember the original Mac. The story of the original game’s development is on Folklore.org, as written by original developer Steve Capps which resulted in the cool book, Revolution In The Valley.

The Bad

• Lacks variety in the form of special power ups or crazy graphics, and hence will likely lack appeal to a modern audience with no nostalgia for the original Mac.

Conclusion

If you have any interest in the early days of the Mac as I do, this game has a lot of quirky, retro appeal. But otherwise, I don’t think modern casual gamers will find much to like. As a result, AliceX is an appealing novelty for Mac nerds - but not much else - hence a three star rating.

Anyhow, check out the video below and see if it’s something you’d be into:

iPhone App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Jose Ferrer
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Set in the early 1900s, Nutty inventor Andrew (Woody Allen) invites several couples to a summer party at his house. Hilarity ensues.

The Good

• Charming period setting, featuring to some beautiful and romantic settings in a summer house and the nearby woods. Allen’s direction seems looser, solid, and ambitious, freed from the confines of his usual metropolis. The setting and plot are loosely based on Bergman’s Smiles Of A Summer Night. Once in the country, the couples become increasingly jealous of each other’s partners.
• The ubiquitous Allen character is now part of an ensemble rather than the main focus. This is the start of Allen’s arguably, best period, where he tries to find a balance between comedy and drama, largely abandoning the goofy comedy of his earliest films.
• First appearance of Mia Farrow, as Ariel, an old love interest of Andrew’s. Her role was originally meant for Diane Keaton.
• Great supporting cast of Mary Steenburgen, Julie Hagerty, Tony Roberts, and Jose Ferrer. Steenburgen plays a frigid wife, Roberts a cad, and Ferrer a pompous professor. Things really get cooking when everyone starts cheating on everyone else.

The Bad

• Despite some hints at a higher meaning (the difference between love and sex, life’s purpose, intellect vs. passion, and the slow decay of marriage), the balance of levity and drama feels a bit off. The Shakespearean overlay and period setting end up rather besides the point as all the relationship stuff piles on.

Conclusion

Worth a rental if you’re an Allen fan, in particular to see the start of his most creative period, but I couldn’t shake its rather trivial feeling in comparison to the larger Allen repertoire.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Zelig
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Stardust Memories

IMDB: A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Wikipedia: A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes: A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy 70%

= 2 stars

Starring Woody Allen, Charlotte Rampling, Jessica Harper
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Director Sandy Bates (Woody Allen), depressed about his reputation as a comedic director, recalls his failed relationship with actress Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling).

The Good

• Allen goes Fellini, more specifically 8 1/2. In the opening sequence, instead of escape, Allen’s character is trapped in a train car with strange, Felliniesque characters and ends up gazing upon a pile of garbage. Allen uses Fellini’s film style to comment on the claustrophobia of fame, as hundreds of bizarre strangers continually pester Sandy. But while Fellini can come across as life-affirming, Allen’s take is notably cynical. Since similar means are used to different ends, it feels more like homage than mimicry.
• The balance between comedy and drama isn’t found - which is exactly what Sandy complains about. Perhaps the movie was directed by him.
• Once cool scene, framed by Allen’s thoughts and an audience reaction, features Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling) flipping through a magazine to the music of Louie Armstrong.

The Bad

• Sandy is not very transparently, Allen himself, but as a result, the film feels damagingly self-conscious. The last scene of an audience commenting on the movie itself - by presenting his worry, he invites criticism.
• The characters aren’t as strong as other Allen movies of this period, and Diane Keaton is notably absent. Neither Rampling or Harper can fill her shoes.
• Partway through, I realized I had seen this flick before but completely forgotten it. That’s never a good feeling.

Conclusion

This flick polarizes die-hard Woody Allen fans. I’ll say I enjoyed the Felliniesque aspects, but what ultimately damages the film is its self-conscious ruminations on drama vs. comedy. If one wants to be taken seriously, just present a serious work.

Sandwiched between much better films, Stardust Memories felt like a step backwards. It’s only interesting to die hard Allen fans who want to watch Allen trying to find that elusive balance he’d finally master - a few movies later.

Next Woody Allen Movie: A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Manhattan

IMDB: Stardust Memories
Wikipedia: Stardust Memories
Rotten Tomatoes: Stardust Memories Stardust Memories

= 5 stars

Starring Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemmingway, Woody Allen
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Recently divorced Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) is dating Tracy (Mariel Hemmingway) - who is only seventeen. Meanwhile, Isaac’s good friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is cheating on his wife with Mary (Diane Keaton), and Isaac’s bitter ex Jill (Meryl Streep) is penning a tell-all book on their failed marriage.

The Good

• As with Interiors, Diane Keaton plays a notably different character from Annie Hall - Mary comes off at first as a snobbish pseudo-intellectual, but is soon revealed to be as jaded and confused as anybody.
• Tracy (Mariel Hemmingway), with her youthful optimism, is soon revealed to be a bold and mature person amid the crabby adults.
• This is a love poem to New York City, filmed in romantic black and white with cut scenes set to Gershwin music. The opening sequence alone is inspiring in its simplicity and effectiveness.

The Bad

• Isaac’s moral meandering results in an unlikable character, while Mary is quite phony and fickle. I found it had to root for either, and their cynical situations are quite a contrast to the pathetic but lovable characters in Annie Hall.
• This is the first of Allen’s films where an older man is in a relationship with a much younger woman - and it certainly isn’t the last.

Conclusion

Despite my complaints, I was consistently amazed by Manhattan’s simplicity - black and white, simple scenes of characters delivering dialogue - no spectacle or special effects. Its magical, efficient storytelling represents Allen at his best - even if I prefer that ditzy Annie Hall.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Stardust Memories
Previous Woody Allen Movie: Interiors

IMDB: Manhattan
Wikipedia: Manhattan
Rotten Tomatoes: Manhattan 97%