Spoiler-Free Comments

Avatar is visually stunning. It has precisely all of the elements you would expect from a modern science fiction epic. I give major credit to James Cameron for an original idea, although the plot itself is a pastiche of mostly unoriginal classic memes. My snarky tweet-length review is “a visually stunning remake of Disney’s Pocahontas“. That said, the film is on its way to become one of the top-10 grossing films of the decade, which until now has consisted entirely of remakes/reboots, sequels, and/or book/comic book adaptations (i.e. not a single original idea). (Note that a non-trivial factor in Avatar’s opening weekend success is the higher ticket prices for 3-D and IMAX showings.)

A word of warning for my typography nerd friends (you know who you are): all of the subtitles are in Papyrus. Hey, at least it’s not Comic Sans, right?

I, like many other commenters, am very interested in the technical aspects of how the film was made, and I do expect that, like the motion control techniques invented for the original Star Wars, we’ll see a significant shift in how movies with fantastical elements are filmed. It also seems likely that some of the performance capture technology will be applied to video games, especially those with more immersive plots like single-player RPGs.

Another thing I’d add: the 3-D version isn’t strictly necessary to enjoy the visual experience of the film. While RealD, as a single projector polarized 3-D technology, is certainly better than the old red-blue systems, or the ones that required bulky electronic goggles to alternate flickering in each eye, I don’t think it adds a huge amount.

So, overall, I liked the movie, but I wasn’t blown out of the water, due largely to the tropeful plot. That said, it certainly got me thinking about a wide variety of topics, including racial issues, exobiology, and linguistics. I plan to see it again, probably in IMAX. Detailed thoughts below the cut (with some vaguely spoilerful comparisons to District 9).

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In March, I bought a pair of Logitech Cordless Trackman Optical trackballs. I love the ergonomics on them, even for FPS gaming. It only took a week or two to adjust from a mouse, and some minor forearm and elbow strain that came with extra long days at work went away.

Unfortunately, my work looked like it had crapped out yesterday when it prompted me to charge the batteries. I’m outside of the Amazon return period, but still under Logitech’s 5-year pointing devices warranty. As it turned out, I just needed to remove and insert the batteries like 10 times to get it to power on. Really, I think this could all be avoided by having a corded version of this product; I really don’t need the cordless features, but this is the only trackball that came close to having the features I wanted. If it were Bluetooth, I might not complain as much (since a separate transmitter wouldn’t be needed).

The secondary problem, as you can see in the video and picture below the cut, is that my mutant power is apparently acidic sweat. The outer coating of the plastic under where my palm, thumb, and index finger generally rest is bubbling and eventually peeling away.

Long story short, I love the design, but am very frustrated with the execution. I’ve asked Logitech in several places to develop a straight USB version of this device.

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I saw the film Moon at the Somerville Theatre this afternoon. It is everything you want from a classic sci-fi story, in terms of addressing the human experience, using a futuristic setting. It also has modern production values, but without any of the empty action sequences typical of a major sci-fi motion picture.

Sam Rockwell is pretty much the only actor you see for the entire 100 minute run time, but Kevin Spacey lends his voice to the robot HAL GERTY, and its at times mysterious motives. There are some amusing moments thrown in, as well (being alone in space unsurprisingly makes you… interesting).

If you can, avoid watching the trailer. I think it’s better going into this film knowing as little as possible about it. Unsurprisingly, I found myself thinking of 2001 a lot, in particular the color palettes involved (lots of whites and greys). However, unlike 2001 or more recently a lot of the effect shots in Battlestar Galactica, sound was allowed for scenes on the lunar surface.

Definitely worth the price of admission (if you can find it, probably at your local arthouse theater, as it is in limited distribution).

OMG AWESOME

Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek There is no subtext Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek!!!

Something resembling a coherent review, and with the Trekkie fanboy slightly restrained, will come tomorrow. For now, sleep.

Introduction

As you may have gathered, I have a… healthy… relationship with everyone’s favorite MMO, World of Warcraft. I forget who originally planted the idea in my head (there’s a good chance it was Lilboo, formerly of the Daring Blades on Kirin Tor), but I decided that I wanted a dedicated game controller that was more than just the keyboard; there’s just too much going on in WoW for an FPS-like control layout, in my opinion. I settled on a Nostromo, and after a few weeks of adjusting, and very few changes to my bindings, I have gotten very used to what may be a very unusual control style.

Verbose explanation of how I use the device below the cut.

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I saw Watchmen tonight.

Generally, I liked it. Unfortunately, at times the soundtrack was jarringly terrible. I think reading the graphic novel before seeing the film is almost required; as such, I suspect most viewers won’t like it. That said, there was a lot of laughing, but I know in part that was directed at some of the more ridiculous lines. The gore level was very high, way above most movies I see; I haven’t seen any of the torture genre, but I suspect it was about on par for some scenes.

Overall, I’d recommend it to fans of the original, and to people interested in stylized comic book visuals. I look forward to the extended edition that cuts in scenes from The Black Freighter animated film, as in the novel. I’ll see if Netflix gets the separate DVD release of The Black Freighter soon.

Spoilery discussion below the cut.

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Today I took my Little Brother Patrick to the MIT Museum near Central Square. I had seen a blurb on their website about an exhibit on social media, and I wanted to check it out (and, since it was billed as interactive, I thought he would enjoy it as well, even though he’s 11).

The exhibit, Connections, features a number of interactive art and technology installations from MIT’s Sociable Media Group. I took a few mediocre iPhone pictures of some of the displays, all of which were very interesting. I love the cool stuff that arises when art and technology collide.

The first thing you see when you walk into the museum right now is the piece Metropath(ologies), which consists of several projectors some big white pillars, plus some speakers, a camera, and several screens. Technically, the first thing you see is the disclaimer that your image and voice may be recorded when interacting with the piece, but I think that’s really cool.

Twitter word clouds projected onto white pillars, with a visitor moving among them.

They also have some interesting ways of some Twitter (and other?) feeds; based on the posts they’re from about 2 weeks ago, not live, but I’m not sure what kind of harvesting they do to produce the visualization. As part of another piece, Lexigraphs I, they also have some stylized views of personal word clouds.

3-D visualization of Twitter posts from a few weeks ago

Person-shaped Twitter word cloud

One of the other Data Portraits was the piece Themail, which gives a timeline word cloud of personal e-mail correspondence between three close individuals. I have e-mail archives going back a long time, I’d be interested in seeing what these look like over time; aggregated they’d just be a roughly Zipfian distribution of English, but presumably there’d be visible spikes as certain topics came and went.

Timelines for three individual's e-mail accounts over 3+ years

Finally, there was a live display of data from the Mycrocosm service, of which I couldn’t get a reasonable picture. It seems to be very similar in concept to the tool Daytum, which I started using several weeks ago. The big difference is that MIT is explicitly wanting to study your usage patterns of the Mycrocosm service, and Daytum has a nice Twitter DM method for submitting data items while mobile.

The exhibit is up through September 13th, 2009, so there’s plenty of time to check it out. There are admissions discounts for students, but it’s free if you’re a Big Brother (or Big Sister) there with your Little :oP.

You can click any of the images above to view a larger version, or see the entire (small) gallery.

I know what you’re thinking. Why would I inflict this movie on myself? Well, I find no shame in admitting that I liked Underworld, mostly liked Underworld 2: Electric Boogaloo: Evolution, and generally don’t mind crazy action/horror movies that primarily involve Kate Beckinsale kicking ass and taking names. I had seen several previews for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, and was going in with pretty low expectations for a prequel. I am going to try to keep this review spoiler-free.

If you’re interested in a plot synopsis, check out the Wikipedia article. Well, you may be surprised, but I liked this movie. Yes, it was terribly cheesy, but in an entertaining way. There was a metric boatload of computer graphics, to enhance the fight scenes; I’d say the most unrealistic aspect were the excessive sprays of blood. Bill Nighy seems to have been born to play an over-the-top vampire villain. I’m guessing Michael Sheen would prefer to be remembered this year for his work on Frost/Nixon, but he did a good job given what he had to work with. Based on the previews, I thought this movie had a distinct lack of Kate Beckinsale. I was surprised when she (yes, I know, getting to that…) showed up early on in the movie, and then proceeded to hang around the entire movie. I didn’t realize that the part of Sonja was not some past version of Selene until the very end of the movie, that’s how much Rhona Mitra and Kate Beckinsale look alike (especially when made up and costumed similarly). I would not be surprised at all if most viewers were also confused (it had been a few years since I had seen the first movie, in which they reference the fact that Selene is Viktor’s “replacement” daughter).

As far as the writing goes, my biggest complaint was pretty much with the cheesiness of some lines, and not so much with the overall plot and where it fit into the Underworld series.. Another review I saw online called it “were-Spartacus”, and that was pretty much my problem – these post-Enlightenment ideals about freedom and self-determination (for the werewolves Lycans, out from under their vampire masters) just didn’t fit in the dark fantasy setting. There were some nice rousing speeches, and they certainly tried to make Viktor’s dictator-character as ruthless and decadent as possible… but it just didn’t quite fit, somehow.

I thought the costuming was pretty cool, from the worker leather armor of the Lycans to the almost elf-like Death Dealer armor. I’d say that Weta Workshop’s work on the Lord of the Rings movies really raised the bar on what people expect from fantasy movies in terms of prop detail, even for a prequel with relatively low expectations like U:RotL.

I should also add that I have no interest in getting into the whole debacle about whether or not this series rips off of White Wolf’s intellectual property; you can read a bit about that on Wikipedia, but since there was no final decision in any lawsuit, I see it as a moot argument. It falls into other silly geek debates like how Warcraft rips off Warhammer, D&D rips off Tolkien, Star Wars rips off Kurosawa, etc., etc. Feel free to argue the point, I just won’t reply :oP.