Recent posts tagged links
2018
And Bear In Mind
I'm on vacation this week and not posting much, but here's some Links Of Note that crossed my desk.
2010
Flatland Dept.
Tom Shales, Washington Post TV columnist, hits on the reason why TV seems to have bottomed, or rather flattened out: ... the very concepts of "good" and "bad" in the arts and communications are now deemed obsolete. Movies and TV...
Empathy Machine Repair Dept.
More excerpts from the Kurtz interview (see yesterday's post): No one’s been able to read the audience, ever, so you have to kind of rely on your own instincts. In the case of Star Wars, George and I had dinner...
Blows Against The Empire Dept.
If the name "Gary Kurtz" doesn't ring any bells off the top of your head, it ought to. He was George Lucas's producer for American Graffiti and Star Wars; he got The Dark Crystal into production; and in this remarkable...
Klanggalerie Dept.
On the face of the evidence, Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mantra is that composer's most widely-recorded and -performed piece. There's the Bevan/Mikashoff recording which I reviewed; the Kontarsky version issued through Deutsche Grammophon / Stockhausen Verlag; the Corver/Grotenhuis version (Stockhausen's alleged favorite,...
Nerdcore Rising Dept.
It's not often I read something that has me screaming and thrashing around in annoyance and disgust, but Rudy Rucker's "Psipunk" thing did it for me. Go read it and then come back here. Okay, we're back. Ugh. Let's leave...
Bent Dept.
Ebert's review of The Last Airbender (they hastily dropped the "Avatar" from the title after you-know-what) strikes blows for good animated features and against the misuse of 3D. Other people have documented in great detail how M. Night botched the...
Et. Al. Dept.
I still can't talk publicly about the Potentially Great Thing that may or may not be happening -- both because I'm not sure I can, and because I'm kinda anxious about jinxing a good thing. All I'll say s that...
J-Paper Dept.
Attempts in Japan to overturn the dominance of newspapers via digital media have largely stiffed: Ink Gushes in Japan’s Media Landscape (New York Times)The article talks about how online journalism in Japan hasn't yet done much to displace conventional printed...
Christmas Comes But Once A Year Dept.
I mentioned earlier that Criterion has a BD of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence in the works. Here's the skinny from The Digital Bits: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence will include a new and restored high-definition master, The Oshima Gang (an original...
Back Stabbers Redux Dept.
Here's an exercise for the reader. Take the word "horror" in the linked article and swap it for the word "anime" or "manga. nick_kaufmann: The Cult of Not Mattering: How Horror Fandom Is Its Own Worst EnemyHorror has its share...
The Big Takedown Dept.
I tweeted about this earlier, but since both Twitter and Tweetdeck are being unreliable pieces of junk (trying to access the MT online editor in Chrome isn't much better; the rich-text editor doesn't even come up when I select it...
Fan Disservice Dept.
Belinda (S1E1) posted her own mixed feelings about Queen's Blade, to which I replied, "It's the best-written bad show I've yet seen." That really does encapsulate so much of what's wrong with it: the storytelling (which is not bad at...
Just Watch What You Say Dept.
Orac has a problem with the concept of freedom of speech getting historical exceptions, as do I: Elie Wiesel: Carve out an exception to free speech for Holocaust denial : Respectful InsolenceI find myself far more in agreement with Salman...
News You Can Use Dept.
Bits and pieces from this week's AICN Anime, including a couple of shout-outs to yours truly (thank you, Mr. Green). Somerset, New Jersey's AnimeNext will host Kenji Kamiyama, director of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and the to...
The Pipeline Wins Again Dept.
An interview with producer Richard Zanuck, mostly about Jaws and Alice in Wonderland, sported this incredibly telling phrase: We had a date long before we started, a release date. The picture was actually booked in thousands of theaters long before...
The Door Is Still Open Dept.
Dave Winer makes a point about Apple and their ecosystem that is precise enough to inspire jealousy in the rest of us who have been seeking to make the same point. ... computers are meant to be more than DisneyLand,...
Finite Dept.
An interview with David Foster Wallace during his book tour for Infinite Jest that was commissioned for Rolling Stone finally sees the light of day as a book. To say I didn't like Infinite Jest is the mildest possible way...
Bird Droppings Dept.
What, expect consistency from the likes of Twitter? Their new ad rules are guaranteed to upset people, and so far they have: My instant review of Twitter's new business plan. (Scripting News)The biggest difference between an open platform and a...
No Cannes Do? Dept.
A sad pall hung over Cannes, in Ebert's eyes: Cannes postmortem. Is that the wrong word? - Roger Ebert's JournalWhile the festivals was underway, the announcement came that some studios want to release their big first-run films to On Demand...
Good Old Days Dept.
The Japan Society's newest newsletter brings word of this event: Japan Society, New York - Authors on Asia Tsunenari Tokugawa: The Edo InheritanceThe Tokugawa Era (1603-1868), brought three centuries of peace to Japan. In The Edo Inheritance, Tsunenari Tokugawa, the...
Tee'd Off Dept.
The New York Review of Books has a fine look at the "new populism", which might be better classified as the New Libertarian Nihilism: Quite apart from the [Tea Party] movement’s effect on the balance of party power, which should...
Thai Cannes Do It Dept.
One for Thailand! Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of Mysterious Object at Noon, copped the Palme d'Or for his Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. In honor of the award I've put my review of Object back online; it was...
Outlaw's Art Dept.
On the eve of the release of that long-awaited Nagisa Oshima box set from Criterion, a long and marvelously detailed essay about the four films in the set. Oshima’s forty-year career, beginning in 1959 and ending in 1999, was that...
Words Worth Dept.
A very good piece about translator Juliet Carpenter: The bright career of a literary 'shadow hero' | The Japan Times OnlineCarpenter isn't a stickler for literal meaning. She likens translation to acting, in that translators take words written by someone...
