March 21, 2006
Spiderman II - and CGI
As it was a bargain and I'd missed seeing it at the cinema I bought the DVD of it the other day. So far I've only sat through it once and I was tired at the time and so nodded off during most of it -but woke up during the end fight scenes and even in my half-asleep befuddled state I thought "omigod they're so obviously cgi characters -they're so totally rubbish. Yeeesh", before falling back to sleep again.
I remember feeling the same way when I saw the second new Star Wars film on TV for the first time. I couldn’t get over how totally crappy the scene in the arena was - where the cgi human characters rode some cgi alien creatures. I mean at least in the old days when they used stop motion animated models - they all had a certain charm -it's something that computer-generated animation just doesn’t have for some reason. Not that cgi animation can’t have charm - see Reboot, or any of the Pixar films -etc. proving it certainly can have charm by the bucket-load. It’s exactly when it’s not pretending to be anything else is when it’s playing to its own strengths, but whenever it tries to take over from the ‘real’ (insofar as any film can be said to be ‘real‘) -is when it’s in its most danger of falling flat on its face.
So, in short, t’would appear I've become rather jaded with computer animation. What was once all exciting because it could invent and show us things that never could be seen before has now become wearisome from over-use, and oh my, isn’t it over-used. It’s problematical for film makers that for all their hard work they're still a long way off creating human-esque characters which are convincing enough for anything other than a quick glance - but when they insist on mixing live actors with their cgi-equivalents they only serve to make those differences all the more pronounced. Unfortunately for them when HD television starts making big inroads into everybody's life - those distinctions are only going to become even more noticeable to the masses.
Mind you - who’s to say that early cgi animation won’t develop a kitschy retro charm all of it’s own? If it hasn’t already. But it hasn't done so with me, maybe I need time. Until then I'll just go on grinding my teeth and whinging. Sorry 'bout that.
Posted by groc at 05:21 PM | Comments (4)
May 28, 2005
notes about reality type TV shows.
The main aim is usually to see people suffer - and in particular to cry. The more they cry the more the camera loves it. All reality shows feature people crying in them at some point. Seeing real people crying real tears is the new pornography.
Most reality shows are about exposing and humiliating proles and allow a mainly middle-class audience to be horrified and appalled at their lifestyles. The notion is that only experts (at a price) can leap in and save them from themselves.
Home make over shows -please try to understand that these people design rooms that only and I stress only ever look in photographs and only then without any people in them at all. Put even one person in those rooms having a cup of coffee reading a book or having a pile of dvds in front of the computer or slobbing out on the sofa and those rooms will look just as bad as any other. These rooms have nothing whatsoever to do with being lived in. These two things are totally incompatable.
Most make-over shows give the message that any and all problems can be solved by throwing large amounts of money at them. Bad dress sense? Spend a lot of money in designer boutiques. Bad diet? - Lots of fresh fruit and veg along with very expensive imported ingredients will help. Bad house - a designer and lots of workmen and expensive furniture will help there.
In short -all these programs are really about being a good little consumer and spending far more than you can earn or realistically afford (in this day and age it is expected of you to put yourself deeply into debt). The surface is all. Being content and happy with your lot and the things you already have is NOT an option*.
A mystery: How can anyone one take 'QueerEyeForStraightGuys' Carson's fashion advice seriously - when he wears the awful clothes he does?
*actually there are a small but growing number of programmes that are now appearing which try to encourage people to live within their means. (I almost suspect with the frightening huge amount of consumer debt that these might be Govt. sponsored) The tide has already atarted to turn - a bit. Of course they still feature experts, the chance to be appalled at other people's lifestyles, and inevitably - crying.
Posted by groc at 01:59 PM | Comments (1)
April 18, 2005
bookishness
Memelicious.
That there Trash Addict decided to get his revenge on me for slapping him with a music meme. I'm slow to respond and had to think about because -I barely read books anymore. There's way too much internet and Satellite TV and DVDs to watch and reading is so damn sloooooow. I find myself increasingly exasperated by it all -I can flip through a book and think: 'too many words, so many words, surely there's a better way?, this is such an inefficent and vastly overrated method of communication.'
You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It is a modern classic. It’s funny and quite profound in a number of places, Adams managed to cleverly distil some rather nifty philosophical ideas.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Not that I can remember.
The last book you bought is:
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
(£3 from MVC. Warra bargain.)
The last book you read is:
I got half way through the Collected Plays of Joe Orton before I decided I didn’t like them much. It just made me want to watch the films again - to see if I’d still like them or not. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them.
I been dipping in and out of a few of the short stories in ‘The Day of Forever’ by J. G. Ballard. But I don’t think I liked them much either.
What are you currently reading?
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2
I loved it. I’ve yet to start the written novel part.
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
The complete Works of Lewis Carroll
The other four would be things like
The Dummies Guide to Surviving on a Deserted Island.
The Jamie Oliver’s Guide to Finding Food and Cooking Yummy meals on a Deserted Island.
The Ann Maurice Guide to Building and maintaining really nice shelter on a Deserted Island.
Some sort of in-depth Encyclopaedia about the Flora and Fauna of Deserted Islands.
I rather think I'd be too busy struggling to survive to have too much book-reading time. So it's bit of a ropey question in my view.
Three people who I'm passing this meme onto:
Rakka.
I know she's always reading books. It was also her what did originally slap me with the meme what I did pass onto the Trash Addict. What goes round - comes round baby.
Ian.
I don't know if he reads ever. So it'll be interesting to see what stuff he has his nose in.
and er... someone else.
Posted by groc at 01:49 AM | Comments (1)
March 15, 2005
new irritations in advertising
Gah - I hope this isn't the start of a big trend, but knowing the sheep-like flocking behaviour that advertisers blindly indulge in - I fear the worst...
I talk of the new 'video diary' style of TV commercial. We've already had weeks upon weeks of a whinging whiney dreary woman droning on into camera about giving up smoking. Now we've got some black woman is on about her sensitive teeth...
I know it makes a change from all those previous years of high gloss and high production values -but now they've gone too far to the other extreme.
Talking of high gloss and production values - and a change gear (ha-ha) it's clear to me that car manufacturers have totally lost the plot with regard to how they are advertising their expensive metal boxes (that go 'whizzzz'). Now that all cars really are very much of a muchness - the adverts have gone form the bog standard of a film of a car driving down lonely picturesque country/mountain roads to… increasingly strange.
What’s that one with the good music and good animation, but really should a car be likened to a tortoise? (Yes, I do kinda get that they might be alluding to protection and the hard shell - but tortoises are slow. Is the car as slow as a tortoise, or a child’s tricycle, or as unstable as a baby donkey foal? Um?)
Cars are now so boring that people driving along having a boring conversation is interesting…? Yawn.
A make of car that is so dull and silver - that other cars are like toys by comparison. Feh to that. I want one of the toy cars -anything rather than the boring silver thing. (Tired of silver cars now - the millennium went that way, surely it’s time for something else now, wake up.)
A car that turns into a transformer and does a dance? Um. Great animation, if only cars actually did something cool like that.
What’s that car with the weird looking back window? That really stupid design - the one which looks so completely wrong? (Only the French could come up with something like that. Not so hot on design -the French -as a rule) That one that overuses that irritating ‘I see you baby - shaking your ass’ pop song. I so hate that song. I so hate those wobbling fat arses, not nice, not sexy, not funny it's just utterly vile.
After all this - since I don’t drive and don’t ‘talk car’ and hence don’t know -nor care about what make of car represents what demographic or income level - or what length of penis they stand for - I haven’t the slightest clue what make of car goes with what advert - they’re all just as interchangeable as they ever were.
Cars are dumb.
Advertising is reaaaaally dumb.
Posted by groc at 05:04 AM | Comments (2)
February 24, 2005
hello can you see me?
this was a group moblog event, sharing the lives of 24 people over 48 hours in new york city.
Posted by groc at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2004
more Creepy Christmas
Rakka put me onto this:
Flickr gets written up on Salon and Creepy Christmas gets a mention - twice!
Posted by groc at 01:30 PM | Comments (3)
October 26, 2004
why American TV is getting worse
Depressing.
Posted by groc at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
Deconstructing the Adverts
Fabreeze.
Ok. Now I know that dogs have a sense of smell many hundreds of times more sensitive than ours. Fine. But where the whole advert completely falls apart is that I also know that dogs love smells - all smells, and the stinker, more repellent to us humans the better dogs like them. They mark their territory by peeing all over the place, they have anal glands that they love to rub all over your clean carpets, they love sniffing other dog’s arses, and they love nothing better than going out in fields and rolling in other animals shit for god’s sake! Dogs are dirty stinky animals and they positively revel in it. Smells are a whole language to them so the last thing any dog would do is anything that would get rid of the foul odours and pongs they love so much.
Oh and the jingle drives me insane too, especially that one with the door bell.
Posted by groc at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2004
Ummm
I find this sort of thing very worrying.
Posted by groc at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2004
the old media vs new media
They just don?t get it do they?
(category: why the human race is doomed.)
So you go to the Newsagents, there in front of you stand an assortment of stacks of newspapers, and nowadays if you go on any weekend you usually have a choice of papers that are as thick as a log with a bewildering array of supplements and these days you even get free music CD s and multimedia CD-ROMs and more increasingly even free movie DVDs to entice you to buy. All these things have cost money to print, and physically make and distribute - there?s all the costs of transportation to the shops etc. and Yet at the point of sale they cost what? Approximately one pound 50 pence sterling -all remarkable value. But then after you?ve taken them home and read them there?s the whole problem of recycling them or trashing them. I hate newspapers for that, especially when the bulk of what you?ve paid for - you never even read. Whole supplements that a are given but a cursory glance before being thrown into the recycling pile. So much wanton waste.
Yet go to the websites of some of these prestigious papers and there are the entire days current news all for gratis, but god forbid that you want to read an old article they?ve published previously. To read that - they suddenly expect you pay a pound. What? A whole pound for a single solitary archived article? Something they?ve already made their money on. What? Do they have to pay a person to sit at a desk and on your bidding go to hunt that article down through hundreds of shelves? Like a local library will do for you - for free? Do you get a free CD or a DVD movie with this purchase? No. You get to read a musty old file on a server just like one of billions you can get to read else on the net for nothing.
Hmmm. I'll pass thank you.
Posted by groc at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2004
merchants of cool
...and this helps explain why there's so little new pop culture around that I like anymore.
Posted by groc at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2004
Let there be à la Carte cable TV
But nobody says, "Gee, you should only buy the sports section if that's all you want."
Errr... actually I do. Well, no it's the exact reverse actually since I have absolutely no interest in sports whatsoever. I hate the sports section of the paper. I resent that I'm paying for it, I resent carrying it home, I resent having to peel it off the other sections of the paper in order to get to the sections I do want to read. I resent having to bag it up and recycle it. In short -I hate having to have to deal with it. Let people buy the sports section if that's all they want - so I don't have to!
Anyone see the Telewest cable TV commercials offering subscribers a selection of what the viewers want to watch most -rather than having to subscribe to packages. Looks like they can do it...
Bonus link: Personal video recorders should worry the big media firms.
Posted by groc at 08:30 PM | Comments (5)
April 05, 2004
commercials? give me a break.
TV commercials wot I just don’t get.
First:
Errr. That new Vodaphone advert where the Salary man is walking home while intently listening to his mobile… the joke/point being that a second phone is next to his TV at home playing a football match. Errr… excuse me - isn’t there such a thing as -(pause for dramatic effect) the Radio? A device which more often than not has whole programs *properly* dedicated to football (and many other sports commentaries) and which is totally free to listen to. It certainly doesn’t cost 2p a minute -which at least 90 minutes for the average length of a match = a complete waste of £1.80.
This man is more obviously the fantasy customer Vodaphone would like for themselves. One that is gullible and stupid enough to give Vodaphone lots of his money. (Sorry Vodaphone -this might come as a shock to you but cheap doesn't ever win out over free.)
Feh.
Second:
Why would someone deprived of a plastic tub of Rice pudding ever suddenly think that a live budgerigar between two slides of white bread might make for a suitable replacement? A mouthful of live raw squirming screaming bleeding crunching feathered body full of entrails isn't exactly like a plastic tub of rice pudding is it? Although admittedly both things are most definitely utterly revolting but only so in completely different ways. Psychologically speaking, the idea of them now being forever linked together -not exactly the cleverest of moves is it now?
Eurgh.
Third:
Whatever happened to Levis? Once upon time, even up to very recently Levis were known for their very good TV commercials. But the current ones for their ‘Anti-fit’ 501s? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
The first advert features a good looking but opinionated pratt of a model boy who is so utterly stupid he thinks that chocolate sauce will go great with his hotdog (he's wrong) and that his skinny arse looks so great in his giant baggy pants (wrong again, so very, very wrong).
Here Levis are effectively saying ‘Hey -you’re very stupid. Buy these really stupid jeans - you belong together.‘
Please god, surely this means bagginess (which has been ‘in’ for so (too) long now) must be on it’s way out very soon. Don’t buy into it kids! Just say no to looking like a complete arse just for the sake of giving Levis too much of your money. Levis has just said they think you’re all morons -please, please don‘t prove them right.
Posted by groc at 10:13 PM | Comments (2)
April 02, 2004
Uh-uh
Ooooh dear - Michael Grade as the new controller of the BBC? This makes me fearful for the new Dr Who even before it's in the can.
Posted by groc at 10:03 PM | Comments (6)
March 31, 2004
free culture
A free book about free culture by Lawrence Lessig.
Posted by groc at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2004
bleedin' obvious
I want one of those consultant jobs where someone gets paid stonkingly huge amounts of money for stating the bleedin' obvious...
1. Advertising doesn't work -especially when it's irritating*.
2. Advertising does work -but only when the product doesn't exist. (I so want some Ichiban now.)
Advertising is pollution - a toxic by-product of the consumerist age. Everyone needs to drastically limit their exposure to it. Poisons the mind and soul it does.
*not that since using the Google toolbar with built-in pop-blocker for IE and Firebird (now Firefox) I actually see any anymore. So how effective is advertising that no one ever sees? Well, it's very effective for the sellers and giver-awayers of pop-up blocking software that's for sure.
PS. I'd use firebird/firefox more if they didn't freak out so badly every time I tried to save a page or a single image from a page. It can take up to 45 seconds (I've timed it) to save a image. Something which IE does instantaneously. Sort it out guys.
Posted by groc at 08:24 AM | Comments (2)
February 22, 2004
Too big a paper, too small a vision
Er…no Mr. Alan Rusbridger. With the utmost respect you’re talking out of your arse. Try to understand the distinction: journalism is the actual writing and not what it form it comes in -nor on what size of paper it happens to be printed on. Honestly, does it really debase your precious high standards of journalism by having the exact same written content up on your website rather than printed on a ludicrously over-sized and hard-to-comfortably-handle piece of paper? Does it likewise debase the journalistic integrity when I read the exact same content which I’ve downloaded it from Avantgo to read on my PDA? Does this also mean the journalism in all your tabloid sized sections is more debased than the articles in the broadsheet sections or magazine of your paper?
The broadsheet is an anachronism that should have been put to final rest in the Eighties. The Guardian back then showed the way forward for the whole newspaper market when it underwent it’s radical redesign and introduced it’s own second half in it’s current tabloid sized format. But now it’s just dragging it’s feet out of what looks to be sheer peevishness and misguided snobbery. It’s time to grit your teeth and make that one last little leap into the 21st century. Commuters everywhere will thank you for it.
Posted by groc at 10:50 AM | Comments (2)
Nescafe Ad.
Have you seen that new Nescafe commerical -the one with self-appointed fashion/style gurus Trinny (Woodall) and Susannah (Constantine)? Did you see what they were wearing in the streets? Shamelessy out in the open like that? Did you also notice that one was dressed all in grey and silver (a spoon) the other all in brown (coffee) carrying a bright red bag (the famous red Nescafe mug)?
Now I want you all to think very carefully about this ...should anyone really be taking any style advice whatsoever from people who take their fashion ideas from a mug of instant coffee? Unless of course they're going to a fancy dress party.
Mmmmm? Well? I should coco.
Posted by groc at 03:59 AM | Comments (3)
January 28, 2004
Just Say 'No'
Posted by groc at 05:03 AM | Comments (1)
January 26, 2004
sitcom
??? wtf. 'My Family' is a sitcom is it? Really? Well, I can see there is a vague situation. That of a naff middle class family doing their rather naff tedious middle-class family things but those things being turned on their head -but there's definitely no hint of any comedy. No, none. No matter how loudly they play their laughter tracks over every last thing. There is therefore no 'com' here but there is however an awful lot of 'sit' -oh wait, I’m sorry, that last word seems to be missing the letter 'h'. Yet this is deemed good enough to appear on the UK gold channel is it? That home of the supposedly ‘crème de la crème’ of British TV programmes. How desperate is that?
What's even more regrettable is that this whole thing is such a complete and utterly painful waste of some otherwise very good British actors. It's a crime.
Sigh.
When's the next new series of ‘The League of Gentlemen’ on?
Posted by groc at 12:43 AM | Comments (7)
January 19, 2004
Fox is no fox
Certainly one of the most unappealing things about the launch of the digital UK G2 channel has been their own promotional adverts for it. One in particular leaves me with a nasty taste in my mouth -it’s the one featuring a be-frogman-suited Sam Fox having a bucket of dead eels poured over her head. I’m far from being a fan of Sam Fox, but I feel cringingly uncomfortable for her that she either: must think she’s being clever, cool, hip and ‘ironic’ by being in this commercial (she isn’t) or else is so desperate for work and/or to be on TV that she has to humiliate herself in this way (that‘s just tragic, and we‘ve already got the Hamiltons constantly publicly humiliating themselves for that -surely that particular slot is full now). I certainly hate the makers of this commercial -what do they think they’re doing? It’s not funny and it's certainly not 'edgy' or witty or even sarcastic, and why have they singled out Sam Fox for this treatment (other than the fact she was willing to go through with it)? Then they have the temerity to have the strap line: ‘Not on our Channel’ -Er, but UK G2 -it most definitely is on your channel. You show it many times a day. You paid to have it made, and being yet another golden oldies repeats channel it‘s the only thing nearest to a programme you’ve ever made.
So we’re being told to watch UKgold 2 because it doesn’t have the sort of terrible cheap programmes where Sam Fox might be pelted with eels. But… but… it’s always promoting itself with this advert where Sam Fox is being pelted by eels. If you don’t want to see Sam Fox being pelted by eels the last thing you want to do is watch this channel, but on the other hand if you do want to watch Sam Fox being pelted by eels this is the only place you can see it and yet as you're watching it you’re being told that this sort of thing doesn’t happen on this channel… my brain hurts now.
Anyway this rant -(which as you can tell I’ve been stewing on for an age now) was brought on by reading this (which I came to via reading this). I seem remember hearing such a while back. But it all seems so implausible, surely it was just another attempt at courting publicity? No? Blimey.
Posted by groc at 08:04 PM | Comments (0)