vendredi 2 janvier 2004

Boring into Janus "The most popular query of the year? I'm sad," John Walkenbach (J-Walk) says, "to announce that it was britney spears." Checking out Google's 2003 Year-End Zeitgeist, as John suggested, I'm sorrier still to find that a whole continent and nobody from it get a single mention in any one of the Top Tens. The makers of one of my favourite (Mac-only) browsers, the Omni Group, have announced a major rival to Safari in the shape of Omniweb 5 (Insanely Great Mac). It won't be free -- the upgrade alone, due out as a public beta on February 2, will cost almost 10 dollars (eight euros) -- but I shall be heading down that road. The screenshots make it look very cool indeed (via the MacDevCenter). There's some good comment piling in -- and some bloody stupid ones -- at MacNN. zzz ..... zzzzzzzzzzzzz "I accept this as an endorsement of the spirit of the Web; of building it in a decentralized way; of making best efforts to keep it open and fair; and of ensuring its fundamental technologies are available to all for broad use and innovation, and without having to pay licensing fees." The man generally credited for "inventing" the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee (W3C), got a gong from Her Majesty the Quoog. Heck! He's the same age as me and Steve Jobs and that Gates chap for that matter... Late as ever, I'd note that the Mirror could have done better than 'Sir-fing the Net,' but their story says it all. 2003 must have left at least one of their editors with a bad hangover. The Kid and I are having a quiet day at home, both often at our screens. Also on the OS X front and forever catching up, the discovery of 'AppleScript for Absolute Starters' by Bert Alternberg, could be a recipe for a more efficient 2004. It's the first primer I've seen that doesn't unnerve me. The reason for staying in to catch up on this kind of thing is in the picture. With its Paris forecast, the Weather Underground seems to be making, as ever, the only convincing prediction I've read today. If you've got any appetite left for last year, the best -- and worst -- of 2003 wrap at Blogcritics has been as good a read as any. I'm delighted to learn that my "hour has arrived! It started in 2003 and continues with increased momentum this year. This is your time of harvest, where you'll reap the fruits of what you have planted since 1980. "For most, this year means success in what you want most." Georgia Nicols, the Chicago Sun-Times stargazer responsible for those splendid tidings for Libras, doesn't appear to dare do what Raymond Merriman risks with his brag about what he claims to have got right. But she made for a more cheerful read than Baudier, who last night proclaimed at the Canteen that 2004 would be "l'année des tous les desespoirs" ("the year of total hopelessness"). He must have been reading Something Awful too. As for resolutions, my 2003 one was that I wasn't going to make any more. "I will not use 409 to clean the toilet seat ever again" was what Tom Johnson managed at unproductivity | journal. The only noteworthy dirty discovery of a laundry day when nobody has anything particular to say was that of 'Belle de Jour'. Perhaps this London call girl who keeps nothing to herself will prove a worthy bogroll blogroll read in the wobbly stead of the lamented reverse cowgirl. We defrosted the fridge. The laundry I can't face till sometime when it seems likely to dry. Today's socks'll be good through till April. Oh yes. I almost forgot the implosion at the truly British Beeb, sparked by Today's bid to make a change from the usual man or woman of the year vote. "It was trailed as a 'unique chance to rewrite the law of the land'... (ed: and indeed it wonderfully was!) "But yesterday, 26,000 votes later, the winning proposal was denounced as a 'ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation' - by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament" ('The Independent'). Thanks to John Robb for reminding me of the year's best miffed quote heard so far: "The people have spoken -- the bastards." 7:15:32 PM  link   your views? [] Jackson and that 'Ring': reflections on mastery Genius? No. A major landmark in the history of cinema? Yes, assuredly. A masterpiece? Now that we've seen the whole, most certainly yes, and one which people will keep watching as long as film and DVD exist in anything like their current shape. 'The Return of the King,' all three hours of it, appears to have silenced all but the most querulous and argumentative quibblers Internet-wide regarding the brilliance and depth of Peter Jackson's effort in bringing Tolkien's ' Lord of the Rings' to the big screen. For all my minor objections to a handful of aspects of the New Zealand director's (IMDb bio) opus, if I could vote for the trilogy as a whole, it's one of the very few achievements listed at the Internet Movie Database to which I'd award an almost perfect 10. 'The Return of the King' (on "official" site) is an epic in its own right, from its admirable opening scenes on Smeagol still as hobbit and his transformation into Gollum by the workings of the ring of power to the final battles in the war for the fate of the world. What I should now like to see is some first-rate Paris cinema (and others elsewhere) pluck up the commercial courage to treat us to the three-year trilogy in one stupendous go, all nine hours in a day. Knowing the way this town operates cinematically, I'll be surprised if no movie-house director or chain decides to do this in the next year or so. No fan of small screens, television or home video, I see no other way to give hardened big-movie buffs a chance to enjoy the sheer consistency of excellence which Jackson brought to his vision of the vast and richly layered tale: a vision with which he managed to inspire the whole of his cast and the big film crews, teams of artists and special effects experts who joined in his very personal dream of how the story might be given flesh, light and sound. "Return of The King is the most enjoyable because in the structure of the movies, it is nothing other than pay-off, there is no more setting up to do, no more exposition, no more introducing characters. The pay-off is very character-based. It is action-orientated as well, but all of our characters have been pushed to a point where their life and death depends on what happens in the third movie. It is very emotional, and from an actors' point of view it is very enjoyable to work on, because they were able to play some pretty intense drama. From my point of view it was always great, because we were heading toward an ending, a climax which we never had in the other two." This "pay-off" -- as Jackson himself put it in the above quote lifted from the IMDb -- is singularly rewarding because 'The Return of the King' is the film that pays tribute to the extremely hard work the leading members of the cast put into the difficult task of character development throughout their years spent on the trilogy as a whole. The film features some of the most spectacular sets and finest camerawork, using New Zealand's magnificent mountain scenery, in the whole of Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings'. For anybody seeking one of the best bunch of picture (computer "desktop wallpaper") places, there's a treasure trove at Minas Tirith ('Ship of Dreams' site*), while the IMDb links to many others. I read a host of reviews of 'Return of the King' after seeing it, and some interesting comments all over the Web, whence it struck me that almost everybody who didn't enjoy or admire the film took issue either with Jackson's view of Tolkien's tomes or with weaknesses and thin areas in the work of the South African-born professor of Anglo-Saxon (Tolkien.co.uk) itself. But I haven't revisited 'The Hobbit' or 'The Lord of the Rings' for such a long time that I can no longer say whether the trilogy is strictly faithful to the books. When I did read them as a child, I found them hard, sometimes turgid, with long and very tedious bits which Jackson certainly left out of his films, and yet still a great piece of literature. Some people, like "systematic theology" scholar J. Ligon Duncan III, find the whole thing "shot through with redemptive metaphors, Christian virtues, veiled references to divine providence and Christ-analogies" (Christianity.com). Tolkien loathed allegory, as Duncan himself points out, and I wouldn't push the Christian case very far myself. But Bradley Birzer, in his 'J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth' (Townhall review by Tim O'Bryhim) even saw it all as a "theological thriller"... When Jackson's work first hit the screens, I saw "explanatory" bullshit drawing direct parallels with contemporary history and particularly the fundamentalist Bush administration's crusade against the so-called "axis of evil". Take this, for example: "...there's a profound parallel between this fantasy tale and what's happening in America today. We all know this one: A brutal terrorist attack shocks a kind but self-centered people into the wide-eyed realization that their nation is the target of intense hatred that's crept up on it for years. (...) "Lecture topics include (...) how unseen astral forces amplify and manipulate global conflicts in an all-consuming battle of darkness versus light" ('Destiny of America') -- always so reassuring to know! That the 'Lord of the Rings' was profoundly marked by the last century's two World Wars strikes me as evident, but I wouldn't read too much even into that. Anybody who does care to seek out a myriad sources and parallels can have several field days starting by buying the 'Proceedings' of a 1991 Tolkien Centenary Conference (Mythopoeic Society). Bringing such a wealth of resources to the cinema and making a darned good yarn of them struck me as an impossible task before Jackson tried it. You may not agree with his vision, you can find holes in his direction or the acting. The Kid, for instance, adored Andy Serkis (warning: music ... of sorts) as Gollum, particularly the schizo dialogues, but thought Frodo as portrayed by Elijah Wood was a wet-eyed wimp, constantly looking as if he was about to burst into tears. But unless one has no interest in fantasy at all, and I know plenty of people who've avoided the whole trilogy for that reason alone, I think we owe a very great deal to Jackson and the whole team for making these films, going through hell at times in so doing (as a host of sites describe, including the excellent QuickTime movies at the official one) and signally failing to screw it up beyond belief! When I saw that the French edition of National Geographic magazine had joined the dozens of periodicals devoting a special to 'The Lord of the Rings', my imagination boggled. But why not? Just how long need we wait for the 'Playboy special: Women of the Rings' (nude feature)? _____________ *They don't want any direct reproduction of or "hot-linking" to the pictures there, so I won't. The pictures I have stolen are credited, in order: © Metropolitan FilmExport; totally unattributed by 'outnow' (Swiss/German); and Pierre Vinét - © 2003 New Line Productions. 2:53:15 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.