Monday, September 04, 2006

Snippets:
~~~~~~~
DVD: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) w/ Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy), Robert Redford (The Sundance Kid), Katharine Ross (Etta Place). Directed by George Roy Hill. The adventures of two bank and train robbers on the run. Unusual for a Western. Some funny moments. Well-carved characters. Some sequences are too long. Overall rating: 5 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Art: Figure Drawing.
~~~~~~~
Art: Art Mobs. Amateur audio blogs for select painting in the MoMA, NYC. Information rather diluted.
~~~~~~~
DVD: Alexander (2004). w/ Colin Farrell (Alexander), Angelina Jolie (Olympias), Val Kilmer (Philip), Anthony Hopkins (Old Ptolemy), Jared Leto (Hephaistion). Directed by Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers, JFK). Story about Alexander's conquests in Persia and India. Mostly bad acting (especially Farrell and Jolie). Gory fight scenes. Poor development of story. Overall rating 2 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
DVD: The Snow Walker (2003). w/ Barry Pepper (Charlie Halliday), Annabella Piugattuk (Kanaalaq). Directed by Charles Martin Smith. Follows closely the short story 'Walk Well My Brother' by Farley Mowat. Arrogant pilot in Northern Canada crashes his plane while flying a young Inuit woman with tuberculosis to the hospital. While they struggle for survival in the tundra, she teaches him many things about life in the wilderness. Great landscape scenes. Good story. Acting alright. Too slow at times. Overall rating: 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Life: Engines of Our Ingenuity No. 1840: Questions and Igorance by John H. Lienhard: Water flows from high places to low places. It flows from a region of high pressure to one of low pressure. Knowledge likewise flows to the point of greatest ignorance.
~~~~~~~
Video: The Paper Chase (1973). w/ Timothy Bottoms (James T. Hart), Lindsay Wagner (Susan), John Houseman (Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.). Directed by James Bridges (Mike's Murder). First year law student falls in love with the daughter of his most difficult professors, who also happens to be his idol. Campus life. Well done, even though rather dry at times. Funny moments. Lindsey Wagner is good. Overall rating 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
DVD: Alice in Wonderland (1951, 2004 release). 75 min. w/ Kathryn Beaumont (Voice of Alice). Walt Disney animated feature after the book by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898). Film varies from the book, but includes Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts. Story is partly nonsense. Some poor singing. Overall rating: 4 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Video: NOVA: Infinite Secrets: The Genius of Archimedes (2003). 60 min. Documentary about the discoveries of the Greek mathematician Archimedes (c. 287 BC – 212 BC), and the Archimedes Palimpsest, a medieval manuscript discovered in 1906 and resurfaced in 1998.
~~~~~~~
Astronomy: NASA has found direct proof of dark matter (photo: in blue) in a composite image of the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56 (a.k.a. bullet cluster)



~~~~~~~
DVD: The China Syndrome (1979). 121 min. Directed by James Bridges (The Paper Chase). w/ Jane Fonda (Kimberly Wells), Jack Lemmon (Jack Godell), Michael Douglas (Richard Adams). Reporter team experiences an accident in a nuclear power plant and starts an investigation on the cover-up. Film was released only days before the Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, PA. Film picks up pace slowly. Gripping story, especially in the context of nuclear fear in the late seventies. Last 30 min are best. Overall rating 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Computer: Good Windows XP tips and tricks at The Elder Geek.
~~~~~~~
Computer: Jay Lee has posted a solution to a very annoying problem: "How to set Internet Explorer window size. Q. When I open up the Web from any source, including shortcuts, it comes up in a reduced size and I have to click on Maximize to get the window to its full size. I have closed the windows in every way possible that I know of including File, Exit. But nothing changes. How can I get my Web pages to open up in full size? A. Programs like Internet Explorer will open to the same size and placement as they were when they were closed. The gotcha is that clicking the X in the upper right corner of the application does not officially close the program. That just exits the application quickly. If you want Internet Explore to open full-size when you start it up, you must first start IE. Then maximize the window. Now click File, then Close. Now restart IE, and it should start up in a full-sized window. If half of the window is off the screen when you start a program, bring the window to the location you want and then click File and then Close, and it will re-open in this position the next time." However, this does not seem to solve the problem when links are opened in a new window --- then it opens again in non-maximized mode.
~~~~~~~
Art: Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. April 25, 2006–October 29, 2006. Cai Guo-Qiang (pronounced sigh gwo chang, b. 1957) is a contemporary Chinese-born artist known for sculptures and gunpowder projects.
~~~~~~~
Art: AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. May 3, 2006–September 4, 2006. Focuses on British fashion from 1976 to 2006. Set in the Metropolitan Museum’s English period rooms—the Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries. Exciting territory to explore.
~~~~~~~
Music: Syd Barrett (1946-2006). Co-founder of Pink Floyd. Was asked to leave the band in 1968 because of mental instability. 'Shine on you crazy diamond' on the Pink Floyd album 'Wish You Were Here' was written about him. Incidentially, Barrett showed up unexpectedly in the studio with his hair and eye brows shaved off when the song was recorded in 1975.
~~~~~~~
Music: Tender Forever. Album: The Soft and the Hardcore. Interesting lyrics, but music is raw. Vocals by Melanie Valera. Review at PopMatters. Song: Then If I'm Weird I Want to Share.
~~~~~~~
DVD: Shikoku (1999). 101 min. w/ Yui Natsukawa (Hinako Myoujin), Michitaka Tsutsui (Fumiya Akizawa), Chiaki Kuriyama (Sayori Hiura ). Directed by Shunichi Nagasaki. After the novel 'Shikoku' by Bando Masako (Kadokawa Shoten), who also wrote 'Inugami'. Woman returns to her home town on the Japanse island Shikoku and finds that a childhood friend she long admired is about to return from the dead. Not very scary, but some great moments. Slow, but adequate pace. Acting not always at its best. Overall rating: 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Music: Charly Haden Quartet West at the Blue Note, NYC on 8/18/06, 8 PM. Charlie Haden (b), Ernie Watts (ts), Rodney Greene (d), Alan Broadbent (p). Great concert.
~~~~~~~
Video: Valley of the Dolls (1967). 123 min. w/ Barbara Parkins (Anne Welles), Patty Duke (Neely O'Hara), Sharon Tate (Jennifer North Polar), Paul Burke (Lyon Burke). Directed by Mark Robson. Three young women in film and show business are trying to manage their careers, lives and love affairs, and their addiction to dolls (happy and sleeping pills). Some good moments, but overall melodramatic, and dwells too long on the same theme. Overall rating: 5 out of 10.
~~~~~~~