James Bond, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and you

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is close to $4 billion dollars in debt and they will soon be looking for a buyer. The studio owns – among other things – the rights to the James Bond franchise, but this situation doesn’t seem to be affecting the momentum of the next film in the series. Apparently, the 23rd Bond film is already in pre-production and will start filming in the latter half of 2010. We can expect it to come out sometime in 2011 if everything goes according to plan. If you can’t wait until 2011, here is a short review for Casino Royale and my thoughts about Quantum of Solace from the end of last year. Also, if you’re really impatient and you happen to have several billion dollars lying around I’m sure you could buy MGM and get things moving a little faster.

another change in direction

Okay, so I decided against using this site to update my life. Maybe somebody noticed, but I doubt it.

The new (and improved!) plan is to start sharing links to the reviews that I’ve been posting on a totally different site…a totally different site with reviews about everything, from the new items at your local convenience store to the expensive wines served in upscale restaurants…located in exotic countries. The Las Vegas Critics site is one of the reasons that this particular blog has stagnated, but Secret Undersea City will soon host links to all of the reviews I’ve been writing during the time I’ve been gone. Get ready.

want some good news?

you might want to try this:

www.goodnewsnetwork.org

OiNK is dead, R.I.P. OiNK

I have no words to describe how the death of OiNK makes me feel, so I will share what some others have said:

Paraphrased Wikipedia: Copyright agencies described Oink as an online pirate pre-release music club; former users described it as one of the world’s largest and most meticulously maintained online music repositories. There were around 180,000 members at the time of closure and all of their avatars had to be cute.

“If you’re not familiar with Oink, here’s a quick summary: Oink was was a free members-only site – to join it you had to be invited by a member. Members had access to an unprecedented community-driven database of music. Every album you could ever imagine was just one click away.”

[Read the rest on: When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide.]

…and it wasn’t just me:

What do you think about OiNK being shut down?

Trent Reznor: I’ll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world’s greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don’t feel cool when I go there. I’m tired of seeing John Mayer’s face pop up. I feel like I’m being hustled when I visit there, and I don’t think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that’s what’s such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they’re grateful for the person that uploaded it — they’re the hero. They’re not stealing it because they’re going to make money off of it; they’re stealing it because they love the band. I’m not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.

[the rest of the interview is on: Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK]

Disney cartoons, pretty girls, fair use and free culture?

How one Walt Disney Cartoon was made:

(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs behind-the-scenes)

Here are a couple quotes from the documentary:
“…the thousands of pencil drawings go to the inking department. Here, hundreds of pretty girls…”
“The inked celluloids next go to the painting department where more pretty girls apply the final colors.”

Damn…Walt Disney was a bigger genius than I ever realized. Unfortunately, to some degree, we also have the Disney Company to thank for possibly being detrimental to cultural diversity. One can argue that a rich, continually replenished, public domain is necessary for continued artistic creation. Disney as we know it wouldn’t exist if the current copyright laws were in place years ago because many of Disney’s animated films are based on Nineteenth Century public domain works, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book.

There has never been a time in history when more of our ‘culture’ was as ‘owned’ as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now. (pg. 28 of Free Culture)

Free Culture is a book about the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the past and how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies.

get a digital copy of the book for free

 

And here’s a humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms:

A Fair(y) Use Tale

the work that must have gone into this…woah.

The Encyclopedia of Life

“Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.”

And it all starts now. With you.

 

 

Another Giant Leap: Back to the Moon

One of the things that I’ve not yet mentioned on this blog is the fact that I’m currently working on several fiction writing projects. One of those projects is set in the near future after we’ve established some kind of base on the moon.

NASA has released a trailer of sorts that outlines their plans to return to the moon again. They’re really trying to make it as exciting as possible…it’s kinda neat:

The newest NASA animation about the constellation program.
The NASA Lunar Exploration Trailer in higher resolution.

Stardust

Stardust: official trailer | Stardust: casino implosion

exclusive HD trailer for Stardust

Stardust trailers on Apple.com

Stardust might very well be my favorite Neil Gaiman (text-only) book (I’ve not yet read Anansi Boys or Coraline) and I was originally excited that they were going to make it into a movie. That excitement has faded…from what I’ve seen so far it looks like the magic will be drained from the story in much the same way that I felt like it was drained from the first Harry Potter movie. I also don’t understand why they’re using some of the bigger names in the cast. I’ve never really cared for Michelle Pfeiffer (even in a catsuit!) and I can’t imagine that Robert DeNiro was very cost effective, but I guess I’m okay with Angela Chase Claire Danes and Rupert Everett.

 

Stardust Hotel and Casino

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, there was a completely different Stardust that lasted from July 2, 1958 until March 13, 2007, when it was imploded. I might be biased, but WhileLasVegasSleeps.com has a complete video of the implosion and I think it’s the best one that I’ve seen. The actual event was way more amazing than the video could capture (the entire fireworks segment was like one huge finale) and you really just have to be there to feel the explosions, but click through for the next best thing.

Coincidentally, in the movie Casino, Robert Deniro portrayed the head of the Stardust, but the name of the casino was changed to “Tangiers” for the film. (We know it was really the Stardust though, don’t we?)