Carnage

After thoroughly enjoying Ghost Write, I'm eager to jump on any material Polanski does - personal life and controversies aside, he's a fantastic film maker. So what can you expect out of an eighty minute conversational-driven drama like this? I couldn't place anything on it, I just jumped in. It didn't take long for me to realize what I was watching, and appreciate that this is more of an experiment, albeit a fairly successful one. Only four people compose the cast - four very talented actors and actresses - and give the movie a very intimate, theatre (as in a play) feel. The entire movie takes place in one apartment, and focuses on two sets of parents. Their respective sons were in a fight and this is their attempt to resolve and understand the situation.

I can just imagine that parents can relate to this movie well, especially those with kids. I can understand slightly, as I always question what would happen if my niece was in a fight, or injured by another child (or she injured that child). What are the repercussions? How do the parents deal with it?

What starts off as a very cordial and polite meeting slowly devolves, as the personality types of the parents begin to chip away at one another, revealing issues with their relationships and personalities. They clash together, and they laugh together. It's like watching a tennis match at times, as the proverbial ball of awkwardness and tension blasts back and forth. There are downright hilarious moments, and somewhat revealing ones, I suppose. The movie ends abruptly, without much resolution. But that's life right there. You can argue forever and go nowhere. You'll reveal more about one another and yourself, but end up back at square one.

Gladiator

Gladiator is a movie that would define half a decade of my life; it's powerful, epic-ally sweeping, well acted and gripping - to name just a few characteristics. It's a true blockbuster, but goes beyond the blockbuster status of movies that had followed it in the mid-nineties. The core difference being the actual development and portrayal of interesting characters set upon an intriguing storyline. The base character path is something that we've all come to know, love and relate to, that being the story of the underdog. But we get a slightly different aspect: Maximus was set to take on the role of the emperor, but was instead thrown to the lions, where he had to work his way up through the ranks of slavery through gladiatorial combat. That's perhaps an oversimplification of the plot, but you already know it, and you've seen the movie a number of times.

I somehow missed this movie in the theatre. I have distinct memories of people talking about it, and here my memory is a bit hazy, as I recall the title in bold black letters on the marquee of various establishments. I can't even tell you the first time I saw the movie, it just came to be. Early on in the release of the home editions, I would be buying the DVD and relishing in it for years to come. As I said earlier, this would define a half decade of my life. During our tenure in university residence, my friends and I would watch this movie countless times. Sitting on the edge of our seats during the action scenes, staring in awe at the Colosseum, and taking in every line of dialogue. It becomes a de facto go-to movie when we couldn't decide on one to watch, and it never got old.

The movie would become the one to demo home theatre equipment with; the visuals were amazing and the soundtrack was booming. When I first got a subwoofer hooked up, it was Gladiator to the rescue. Whenever a new television was purchased or connected, it's Gladiator showing off its visuals. During the years of 2000 to 2005, there were a lot of technological advancements in my home theatre. First, was the addition of surround sound, then, a new television (flat tube CRT). DVDs became prominent and as they were remastered and re-released, my group of friends and I were on top of it; always looking out of the highest quality releases. So when a blockbuster like Gladiator comes along it's ideal: not only a fantastic movie but a great demo and test of your system.

As I watched the movie a few weeks ago, it struck me that Gladiator became a social event, just like The Big Lebowski and American Psycho. I hadn't watched these on their own in four or five years, and the urge to watch the Bluray version of Gladiator overcame me. I was worried, of course. Had the movie stood the test of time? Would my taste in film preclude me from enjoying this classic that I had once adorned?

Gladiator looks old, but it also looks great. I'm surprised, frankly, by the image quality here, simply because it's better than expected, and I'm not sure that it has been remastered. Years ago I would load up the DVD for Lord of the Rings and behold the terrible quality. The hi-def editions of those movies look incredible, and I find that Gladiator looks nicely grainy, gritty and natural. All good things, considering the CGI that's embedded into the film. You know the story behind the Colosseum, and I'm sure the effects are all over in this movie. But it's a prime example of how to do these type of effects effectively, and it pays off. Years later they still look great.

Without a doubt, this movie will continue to be one that I use to "break-in" a new television set, and a great one to show off to future generations. It stands as one of the best.

21 Jump Street

Not much fanfare for this movie beforehand, and it certainly wasn't one I was expecting to go see in the theatre, but a few nights ago I found myself in the darkened theatre with a couple of friends. It's the name - 21 Jump Street - and nothing else that I recognize or know about it. Sometimes being unprepared for a film is the best thing. No preconceived notions, no knowledge of the Tomat-O-Meter, and no expectations based on the source material. I knew even less about the original, and wasn't even aware that Johnny Depp was in it (and really got his start there). So when he showed up in the film it was unexpected. I wasn't overly impressed either: it felt like a Saturday Night Live cameo where Depp was probably just on the lot during filming, and took himself a role just for the sake of being a good guy. Little did I know, and I stand corrected. His awkwardly long and wordy cameo is justified, and probably a real treat for fans of the original.

I can't help but wonder how much of the original made it in here. Jonah Hill - love him or hate him - was heavily involved in the story and certainly brings his brand to the production. You get that type of humour, which for the most part seems quite immature and gratuitous. There are certainly funny moments, and I wonder if my age or rigidness is getting in the way, but I couldn't find myself really enjoying this movie. I'm also not a fan of Channing Tatum, but was pleasantly surprised by his turn in his role here. I'm still not sure what to make of Hill, except that he continues to play the same baffled and agitated character time and again. Is it being typecast? It's certainly not like being typecast the way an actor would be ages ago - perhaps it's because these are comedy actors. It's just like saying Michael Cera plays the same character over again. And I'm certainly not qualified to say if this is a new trend or has been going on forever: my favourite comedy actors from childhood probably did the same thing.

The Great Music Collection, part three: The Import

It's no secret to my friends that I hate iTunes. The software (on Windows) has been sluggish, bulky and a pain to deal with. Any Apple software - for that matter - has been difficult to deal with. I remember a decade ago trying to play movie trailers with Quicktime on the web, or download the trailers and play them locally. It was a fiasco that I've since resolved by not installing any Apple software on my system, and just installing the proper codecs from others. This lets me download and enjoy those MOV files like it's nobody's business, especially not Apples. But I digress, iTunes is a necessary evil now that I've jumped onboard with the iPhone. I figure I could make it work, to at least get by. And so far, things have been OK - except the automatic updater has never worked, on any machine I've used. Anyway.

Anytime I've used iTunes to import my gigantic collection in, the software has chugged along, done its thing and given up quickly afterwards. This is mainly due to tagging and organizing. Although I may have an album tagged properly and it looks alright in software such as XBMC or Winamp, iTunes reads it differently and manages to ruin my day. But this time I've taken a different approach, and I must say it's been pleasurable. Perhaps it's my patience, or seeing the beneficial light at the end of the tunnel, or the ridiculous number of updates Apple has done to iTunes over the years, but things have been great.

I start with my main Albums folder, which is supposed to contain music I listen to most often. I import each folder one at a time. This point is crucial: one at a time. iTunes is also set to copy files into its library, and to organize the files itself (admittedly it uses a nice structure of Artist -> Album). Doing it this way allows me to inspect an album on its own, fix any tagging issues and sort it as I please. It takes just a minute or so to copy the album over the network to my desktop, and just moments more to fix regular issues. In some cases, I have to touch every track, but for the most part my meddling consists of modifying an entire album of tracks at once, for things like album name, genre and year.

Which brings me to what fields should be properly set up.

1. Artist
2. Track Title
3. Album
4. Album Art
5. Year
6. Genre

That's it, in order of importance. The top three are of the utmost importance, and have to be correct. Album art is important but not necessarily necessary. Year and genre are more for sorting and using later, and for the most part I could see years were correct, however I wasn't too keen on checking every album. Genre is tough and is probably worth a post all its own, but I tried to keep it simple. I had the Allmusic site open at all times to check genres of artists; quickly you see a limitation of iTunes in that you can only apply one genre, whereas Allmusic presents you with Genre, Style and Mood, of which an album could fall under a number of headings. So it's kept simple here, and not something that I plan on using too much later on.

Once an album is copied over, and I'm satisfied with the top four - I decided album art was absolutely important in this step - I would move onto the next. I got brave, and would be ripping some albums at the same time as importing existing rips. The software didn't put up a fuss and it wasn't too hard to focus on, with the end result that I could import my entire collection more quickly.

As I imported more and more, my satisfaction increased exponentially. Everything looked clean. I recalled days of importing two hundred albums at once and being scared by the mess that ensued, but doing it this way provided a clean, efficient and tidy collection that I was happy to scroll through. Everything is as what it should be. It took around seven or eight hours by my best estimate, over the course of three or four days, but I was enjoying every minute of it, and the end result made it worth the time and effort.

Afterwards, I would go through my library and put albums into the "Core" playlist, which is the playlist that will sync with my iPhone. It serves as the music I'm most interested in and represents what I'm currently and willing to play. The next step now is to bring this collection to the server, and allow both XBMC and Subsonic to view my progress.

The Great Music Collection, part two: Existing Structure

I've been buying music for a long time. One of my first cassettes was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie soundtrack. I also picked up the Batman movie (1988 Burton) soundtrack. Keep in mind that this was the score to the movie: there was no Prince on here at all. It was one of the first CDs I bought, as I was in HMV with my dad and sister - who were buying lots of music - and I felt a bit left out, so my dad let me get that album. Then, in high school I got into "real" music, so to speak. I got a three disc all-in-one stereo for Christmas, a few albums and I was off to the races. Over the next few years I would buy albums constantly. Album buying would slow down quite a bit as funds dried up during university, but that just meant I had to apply more strict criteria to my purchases.

High school was also the time that MP3s came out, and I took an immediate interest in. Keep in mind that we're talking about the days when the legalities were not set. You didn't need file sharing software because songs were hosted on websites all over the place. After a couple of years it because clear that it wasn't going to fly, and all the sites were taken down, to be replaced by Napster (and you know the history there). I never really got into that type of file sharing, and I think a big part of it was because I was more interested in the entire album, not just individual songs. Over the years I would accumulate a lot of music, be it through digital download or buying the album and ripping it myself. I got so much that I didn't know how to sort it out, and the problem of what I actually wanted to listen to popped up: a lot of those albums I bought in the 90s were just terrible now, and I question my younger self on his taste in music.

Such as it is, I currently have this file structure, seeing in the image below. I'm going to give a brief overview of what each one contains.

5.1 | This is when I dabbled in surround music. I own quite a few special edition albums that have surround mixes, but found it tough to get them into the main collection. There's only a few albums in this folder and they are not easy to play back. I've basically given up on them.

Albums | This is the core collection, 247 albums right there. If an album has made it in here, then you know I've spent the time to make sure the file names are proper, there is artwork in the folder and I have an interest in the album itself.

Albums B | Not very creative name, but these are mainly CDs I've ripped myself and have no interest in anymore. There's a lot of 90s music in there.

Compilations | For those mix CDs you could buy, like Big Shiny Tunes. Only a handful of compilations are in here, as they are more "singles" based.

Lossless | Music I've ripped in lossless format. Representative of my favourite music that is worth the extra space, and is primarily what I listen to on the home theatre.

Movie Soundtracks | For quite some time it's all I could listen to and get; movie scores, sound tracks and what have you that I haven't listened to or opened in half a decade.

New | Should indicate newly acquired music.

Podcasts | For downloading podcasts outside of iTunes whenever possible.

Singles | Very few singles exist here; as I mentioned before I was and still am more interested in full albums

Soundtracks | Seems a bit redundant, and definitely a case in point for the neglect my collection has been (not) receiving. There are two albums in here, both for Tron Legacy. Perhaps it's meant for a modern movie soundtrack collection that I have an actual interest in.

Staging Ground | The bane of my music collection. This is newly acquired music that has to pass through my non-existent organization process. Here you find folders of music that are not tagged properly and missing artwork. These should be moved into Albums one day, but it's been years since that's happened.

Staging Ground Lossless | Same as the regular staging ground but for new lossless encodes.

VG Remix | Yes, I was once a fiend for video game remixes. I could go into a long history of that, but just know that I've downloaded these since the early 90s from Compuserve. A guilty pleasure if there ever was one. Hasn't had an addition to it in years.

Video Game | For the full albums of video game music. 

So there it is, as the collection stands right now (early March 2012). It's a pain, it's a hassle and organizing music in this way has become too much for me to handle. It is definitely showing its age and is just begging to be replaced by something modern. In part three, I'll discuss my experience with importing this collection of misfits into iTunes.

The Great Music Collection, part One

Recently, I've undertaken a project to use iTunes to it's "full" extent, in that I'm going to start using it to organize my music. The biggest hurdle I've had for doing this in the past is the sheer amount of songs and albums I have, and the organization that needs to be done to properly put it into iTunes. For years, I would manually tag all my MP3s; I would rip my CDs and encode them with the latest and greatest (most recently LAME V2 or something - it's been years) and put them into proper folders. The system shows it's age, but one thing for sure, is that it will never be obsolete: you'll always have the files to play with. Going to a database-driven system like iTunes offers much more flexibility in sorting, tagging and whatnot, but you're kind of tied to the system, which is something I've never liked. It doesn't help that iTunes on Windows is one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used.

Then, came the iPhone. By purchasing the iPhone and using it, I was fully aware that I would be forced to adopt iTunes. There's really no good way around it; there are other options for getting music on there, but nothing for actually managing the device once it's connected to the computer (at least, nothing I'm comfortable with). This presented problems for me though. I have a sizeable music collection that exists on my home server. I have my laptop, which I do most of my computing with, and for some reason decided to connect and configure my iPhone with, so that my laptop basically became it's "home" so to speak. I would copy my favourite albums onto my laptop, then import those into iTunes haphazardly. It wasn't pleasing, but the end result was my music was on the device and I could use it. 

1. My iPhone is tied to my laptop

2. My laptop contains my favourite music, but is "unkempt"

3. My server contains all my music, fairly unorganized now after years of neglect

4. My desktop is convenient and easy to work with (proper mouse, keyboard, monitor)

There are a few other notes I could throw in there, but the point is: everything has been overly-complicated. I need to simplify things. The goals:

1. Have one place for all my music

2. Have all my music properly tagged

3. Have the ability to easily add music to my library

I'm not sure what is the most important factor, but in the end, I need more control over the music I have on my phone. The beauty of iTunes lies in the playlists, and with this, I can accomplish my goals. Simply, create a playlist (I like calling mine "Core") and sync that with your iPhone. Anytime you want to add to your iPhone, add it to Core and next time you sync, the album will be there. Likewise, it's easy to remove albums from that list. You can also create other playlists for your activites, for instance, "Gym" which is pretty self-explanatory. I know that by laying this out I'm dating myself - playlists have been around forever - but keep in mind I am lazy, and have been neglecting the inevitable. This is an exercise in modernizing myself too, really.

The first decision in this project was to determine where to store my music. I had to go with what's easiest: my desktop. There is nothing finer than sitting at a desk, with a proper full-sized keyboard and monitor, and just doing what needs to be done. This means abandoning my laptop for music completely, although I could still store my music on the server. The first phase is not to do that though: all the music will be stored on the desktop, as it is now going to be the computer I sync my phone with. The phone takes priority, and it's easiest to go through the prompts and whatnot on the desktop than it is with the server. When I complete The Big Import, I'll be copying the entire iTunes folder to the server in all it's glory. This serves two purposes: one, it's a backup; two, it allows me to play that music through whatever medium I choose on the server. And that brings up a big point. I used XBMC exclusively there. There is a nice remote control, iPhone app for control as well, and the interface is built for you when you're on the couch. XBMC also has library capabilities, although they are much more limited and we can't forget the two big factors here, which are iPhone syncing and ease of use (going back to the point that it's easier to manage a music library on a desktop than it is on a fifty inch plasma television). 

Finally, I have one other medium of playing music, and that's my Subsonic music streamer. When Apple was announcing their cloud and music streaming thing I looked for cheap or free alternatives that would do the job better, and I found Subsonic. This allows me to stream music anywhere on the internet, from my server's home connection. I use this mainly for playing music at work, where I don't have to worry about loading my work laptop up with MP3s: I can just stream it instead. The system works beautifully but it's sort of limited to looking at the file structure on your computer. Thank goodness I've organized my music in such a way that it works great for streaming, but iTunes also has an option to keep your folders organized for you. Subsonic loves the way iTunes organizes music, so I point Subsonic at the iTunes library and I'm all set for streaming music as I see fit. 

So that's it for part one. Hopefully you have an understanding of what I'm trying to do. In later parts I'll discuss my experience with specific aspects of the project, including the importing of everything into iTunes, quality of ripping, and the criteria for what makes an album good enough to find it's way into the main (or Core) library. I've always loved organizing music, but in recent years that love has faded. Doing this has sparked the passion again, and driven with the hope that the results will make listening to music that much more enjoyable.

The Avengers Trailer

My buddy thought it would make for a good post to talk about the latest Avengers trailer that came out last week. I'm not so sure though, I may be too jaded. Yeah, I didn't even watch it until this morning, nearly half a week later. Trailers used to be one of my favourite things to download, archive and watch. I would jump on new trailers like a bug, usually grabbing them in the highest quality available. Now, I just watch them in a little window, on my laptop, on Youtube. How the might have fallen.

So this trailer finally gives us a proper glimpse of our heroes fighting, working together and generally doing their thing. We have the Hulk doing his famous jumps, and Thor swinging his hammer, Captain America punching punching bags and the others just kind of hanging around - there's a reason Hawkeye and the Widow didn't get their own movies - although they probably would have been some of the best if given the proper treatment.

We also get the introduction of our main antagonist in Loki, which makes this feel more like a trailer proper. In previous incarnations we would just get excited that all these superheroes were on screen at once with nobody to really conflict with. We also get a giant flying worm thing, which is cool, but I'm now convinced that The Transformers and Michael Bay are involved in this film now. There is no doubt we will get tons of action, and it's a comic book fans wet dream, but I assume the movie will be fairly predictable, because it always goes this way in comic book crossovers:

1. A quick origin/introduction/backstory for each character so you understand who they are
2. Heroes meet up and start fighting one another
3. They work together when they realize they complete one another
4. Fight the supervillian and march off victorious

Look, I'm not trying to be revelationary here, everyone knows how the movie will go down. It's not about that, right? This is a culmination of years of pretty decent movies, some big actors coming together and generally being super. Nothing wrong with that at all, and I actually look forward to the movie. The reason I'm so late on the trailer is I don't need it: there's been quite a few previews and honestly, I want to be unspoiled for the film. While I may come across as jaded here, I'm really pretty excited - I am a comic book nerd after all.

I think we can all agree that "Avengers Assemble" is a better title than "The Avengers"

Immortals

Immortals - or as I miscalled it constantly The Immortals - presented itself to me as a 300 clone. Perhaps a knock off. But after watching it, I see it's not true, in fact it only takes a few minutes of watching that it's simply not the case. If anything, watch the television series Spartacus to see the visual "knock-off" of 300: in your face CGI, half naked men everywhere (and added fully naked women to the mix) and enough blood to fill your in-ground pool. Spartacus is engaging regardless, and stands on it own, as well this movie should as well. That's not necessarily a good thing: this movie was lacking in some areas, and excelled in others.

Perhaps excels is too strong a word. Was I entertained? Yes. But I kept focusing on something. As the movie begins, we learn that the Immortals in the title refer to the ancient gods, and gives a brief history of how they came to be. I'm a little unclear, but there was a civil war of sorts where all these Immortals find out that they can kill one another where normally they are invincible. One group comes out on front, and the imprison the other survivors in a standing prison of sorts, buried deep on Earth. The victors are the great gods of mythology, led by Zeus himself, with Poseidon, Athena and Apollo in tow, to name a few. A mad king (played well enough by Mickey Rourke) is on a bender to free these imprisoned immortal beings for one reason or another. It doesn't matter: he wants chaos and death, which should be enough for everyone to want to stop him.

Come down to Earth and we have Theseus, a mortal with the capabilities to stand among the gods, but he's a simple peasant. His primary motivation is the murder of his mother by none other than King Hyperion himself. There's some talk of some mystical bow, visions from an attractive oracle then a quest to prevent the king from getting said bow as he'll use it to free the "evil" immortal beings. The mythical beings - Zeus, specifically - are basically jerks, or at least they are presented this way in the movie. They've imprisoned these other beings for all eternity and they refuse to assist humans (for punishment of death).


This is the spoiler alert. It actually bugged me quite a bit: King Hyperion eventually frees the immortals with the magical bow, and they are growling, incoherent monsters. I thought they were equals, caught in a civil war and on the losing side. Perhaps the prison they were in turned them into mindless zombies: Zeus and his buddies come down in full force, clad in golden armour and outmatching these zombies in skill and power. It becomes a numbers game, and a disappointing albeit flashy fight.

So sure, the plot is spotty at best, but the action is good times. I felt the shadow of 300 here, and indeed, in other movies, through action scenes where the hero systematically moves forward and dispatches a dozen enemies in slow-and-fast motion, blood splattering everywhere. It was impressive in 300 and entertaining in movies like this - especially in an age of movies where action scenes are dominated by fast cuts and shaky cameras.