3D to “Revolutionize” Porn Industry. . .Again? Maybe. Possibly. (I doubt it).
January 26, 2009
Every few years this same story crops up: being such a natural fit, pornography and 3D viewing systems are announced to be forming an alliance that will have us all lolling about having fake sex with 3D images of the already artificial, botoxed, surgically-enhanced, bleached and shaven vixens of Hollywood’s shadow industry. Announced with great fan fare, these stories and their 3D systems never deliver on their throbbing, pulsating promises. But maybe this time it will be different. . .?
A $4 million 3D remake of the Hong Kong softcore classic Sex and Zen is in preparation; only 25 to 30% of this new version will be sex scenes so apparently this is being geared for the imaginary ‘couples market’ niche of the porn world.
But wait, there’s a fly in the lube already! Producer Stephen Shiu Jr. complains. “We’re having trouble finding a male lead who is willing to undress in front of the camera.” For the complete article, (SFW) go here.
Back in the day when I was introduced to the high octane, bullet ballets and swooping kung-fu wire work that have long since been incorporated into the Hollywood film lexicon, to see these films you needed to go to certain video stores in your local Chinatown (for me Lafayette or Bayard Streets below Canal). Bootleg copies on VHS cost $4 and the first time a gwai lo (“ghost person,” e.g. white boy) ventured inside you could expect to wait a longish time before the owner was prepared to sell you anything.
My ‘bible’ in those days was a paperback titled Sex and Zen and a Bullet In the Head by Stefan Hammond and Mike Wilkins. It remains an excellent introduction to the pre-takeover (before 1997) HK cinema.
The back of the book had thumbnails of the movie posters for their essential picks, along with titles in English, Cantonese and Mandarin. I would point to these and the video store owner would dutifully get them (or quickly dub a copy) for me. After a few visits, I evidently passed some sort of test and was welcomed into these stores as a true fan. Now I would get suggestions for new movies, based on my previous selections.
If you’ve never seen The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, Project A, Parts I & II, Armor of God Parts I & II or Police Story I, check them out and see what made the pre-Hollywood careers of director John Woo and Jackie Chan the stuff of fanboy legends.
And know this: if it wasn’t for what he learned worshipping at the altar of 1980s & 1990s HK cinema, Quentin Tarrantino wouldn’t even have a job as gaffer today.
“My Bloody Valentine-3D” — 3D film, 1D plot & characterizations
January 20, 2009
Technically, the 3D in “My Bloody Valentine- 3D” is excellent; however, the use this technique is put to here is simply moronic.
This is a horror/thriller with no horror and no thrills despite a very high gore content and extremely gratuitous nudity.* Unless you consider sudden loud noises and the abrupt, unexpected appearances of supporting cast members to be ‘thrilling.’
To earn the ‘bloody’ in the picture’s title you get sequences like this: a buxom midget motel owner is impaled on the ceiling with a pick axe; the top half of a pretty blonde’s head is severed with a shovel in a mine shaft; an eyeball is popped out of one character’s head; the jaw of an old man is ripped from his face and hurled at the camera; a comatose patient awakes after a decade asleep in a hospital and severs nurses and fellow patients in two, disemboweling some of them and placing one woman’s heart inside a box of Valentine chocolates.
You get the feeling that this stuff was written by two stoned 14 year olds, cracking each other up with how ‘outrageous’ they were being. Dude! A word of caution to parents: let them have the pot, but please lock up the lap tops and word processors.
The film is a remake of a 1981 Canadian slasher picture set in a mining town where a pick axe swinging menace slices and dices teenagers trying to have sex on Valentine’s Day. (Teen age sexuality is the number one cause of serial killing, as depicted by Hollywood screenwriters). The original was a low-budget entry in the category of the more imaginative Freddy’s, Jason’s and Michael Meyer’s that continue to spawn sequels today.
What 3D slasher horror really needs is a great genre director like John Carpenter; if only this level of quality stereoscopic filming could have been available to him for the first “Halloween” picture!
Not only does the story of “My Bloody Valentine- 3D” make little sense, the film stoops to outright cheating to deliver it’s ho-hum ‘twist’ ending. Scenes that we originally saw with two characters in them are shown in flash back with only one, so that the reveal of the killer will ‘kinda sorta’ fit. The final shot even sets the stage for a sequel (that I doubt will ever be made) and is the only truly frightening thing about the entire picture.
Given all the above, you’ll probably think I’m crazy to praise the 3D filming but, if you can separate what is being filmed from how it’s being filmed, you have to be impressed.
3D movies can now be produced with excellent depth and no eye strain. The glasses are comfortable to wear and they fit easily over prescription glasses. They simply need better content, if Hollywood expects to pull people away from their wide screen TVs and into theaters for a ‘premium’ viewing experience (and ticket price). “My Bloody Valentine- 3D” cost $13.75 per at my local multiplex.
It really all comes down to the story and the writing. Sadly, for both 2D and 3D cinema technical production today far exceeds both the skill and imagination of our current crop of screenwriters.
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*For the record: I stand in full support of gratuitous nudity, but isn’t it supposed to be naughty or tittalating? Not here it isn’t.
One attractive young actress (Betsy Rue as “Irene”) is required to perform almost her entire on-screen time completely nude, except for a pair of platform heels, for no discernable reason. She even walks out of a No Tell Motel in the buff to confront her fornication partner, a bald trucker, over his illicit videotaping of their rutting encounter.
She’s upset that he filmed them having sex but she stands stark naked in the middle of a parking lot to complain about it?
Rather than arousing the entire sequence came across as merely uncomfortable. It was a relief when the trucker’s bald dome was punctured by the killer’s pickaxe, even if only to allow poor shivering Betsy to run back inside. (Also: didn’t adult human females used to have pubic hair at one time? I’m just saying, is all).
Nut allergies – a Yuppie invention – Los Angeles Times
January 12, 2009
Joel Stein makes points familiar to all skeptics in this opinion piece. Want to become even more skeptical than you already are? Go here. I double-dog dare ya.
Nut allergies – a Yuppie invention – Los Angeles Times.
10 Things You Won’t See After the Recession – Business Center – PC World
January 12, 2009
Mike Elgan of Computerworld makes a good argument for his list. I disagree about the installed base of landline phones but I could be wrong and he might be right. And this was written before CES and the announcement of the Palm Pre. Consider that U2’s Bono bet $100 million of his own dollars that Mike is wrong about this one.
10 Things You Won’t See After the Recession – Business Center – PC World.
How the City Hurts your Brain
January 12, 2009
As of 25 year resident of NYC I read this article with more than a casual interest. Some research appears to show that urban life can impair our basic mental processes. This seems oxymoronic while sitting on the D train watching women apply eye make-up at 7:30 am as the subway car lurches into Rockefeller Center, but sobering when you realize it applies equally to everyone.
Here’s one conclusion I didn’t need a scientific study to confirm: “A tired brain, run down by the stimuli of city life, is more likely to lose its temper.” Tell me something I don’t know.
For the complete article go here How the city hurts your brain – Boston.com.
George W. Bush: Idiot-In-Chief
January 5, 2009
From a list compiled by the AP:
Why hasn’t a Chiropractor won a Nobel Prize?
December 9, 2008
Is this a legitimate question: why hasn’t a chiropractor won a Nobel Prize?
M.D.’s have won them. Mathematicians have won them. Physicists have won them. Professors, academic and medical researchers have won them. Even lawyers have won Nobel Prizes. So, really, how stringent must the vetting process be?
They gave Henry Kissinger half of a Nobel Peace Prize (one he shared with Le Duc Tho, the Communist leader of North Viet Nam) in 1973 for negotiations over a war that didn’t end until 1975.
How come no acupuncturists have won a Nobel Prize? How come no reflexologists have won a Nobel Prize? Why have no homeopaths won a Nobel Prize?
Are these legitimate questions? Does the lack of recognition by the Nobel Prize committee mean that there’s been no benefit, no advance of human knowledge in these fields?
I know what my answer to that question would be. But what do you think?
“A Natural History of Seeing” by Simon Ings
December 3, 2008
Light hits a rod in my eye, and bleaches pigment within. A cascade of chemical events shuts down the rod’s ‘ion channels’ — proteins that pass an electrical current around the cell. With its ion channels shut down, production of a chemical, glutamate, is stopped. This sudden chemical ‘silence’ excites a neighbouring nerve sell and sets it chattering. News passes from neighbour to neighbour, from nerve cell to nerve cell: the beginning of vision.
Novelist and science writer Simon Ings has produced a phenomenal book on vision, one that contains gems of information on every page. This is selling science to the public at the highest level; one that is as engaging and compellingly readable as any commercial thriller starring a government assassin named Bourne or Bond. Everyone with eyes should read this book. Get your copy here.
Here’s one example: below is a reproduction of Alfred Yarbus’ record of eye movements while studying a picture of a girl’s face. The jittery line drawing on the right shows how frantic our eye movements are, even when we believe we are taking in an object ‘at a glance.’
“. . .in reality my eyes are never still. Every third of second they jolt or ‘saccade’ moving my gaze from one part of an object to another. My single ‘glance’ is a multitude of little fixations, not unlike the twitching of an insect’s antennae, or a mouse’s whiskers. . .”
Golden Age Comics – FREE Downloads
October 23, 2008
I’ve just discovered a site that has a fantastic collection of public domain Golden Age comics from the 1930s, 40s & 50s that have been carefully scanned and are available for free downloading. It’s called, appropriately enough, Golden Age Comics and you can access their site here. The great majority of these have never been reprinted, anywhere. If you wanted to purchase copies, they would cost you hundreds of dollars, that is if you could even find them for sale.
Of course, reading them on screen does not equal holding a printed copy in your hand, but for most of us this is a close as we’ll ever get. This is a fantastic online resource for the serious researcher or collector as well as the casual fan. And if you’ve never before read a Golden Age book, I think you’re in for a real treat.
Today’s comic marketplace is dominated by a single genre: super-heroes on steroids with skin tight costumes and a bad attitude. If they’re female it seems to be a requirement that each breast is the size of her head, or larger. But during the Golden Age dozens of genres flourished; romance, western, outer space, war, horror, funny animal, crime, parodies, movie and TV star based comics, kid’s comics and more. The variety is amazing compared to what’s on the racks today.
All that’s required is a free registration (password and legitimate email address) and you can browse their archive for such gems as Joe Kubert’s TOR (in 3D), Black Magic, Crime Does Not Pay, Tales of the Mysterious Traveler, The Spirit, This Magazine is Haunted and hundreds more from over 35 different publishers.
For viewing files that are not Zip archives, Windows users can use the WinRAR utility, Mac users can use the open source Jomic, which also allows conversion to PDF format.
Young, Dumb Americans
October 5, 2008
A recent study claims that two thirds of all Americans aged 18-24 cannot find Iraq on a map; 33% couldn’t identify Louisiana; 47% couldn’t find India; and 75% think English is the most widely spoken language in the world.
Unfortunately, I find it easy to believe this. . .even if it’s true that 47% of all statistics are made up.