digimills

It’s been almost a month since my last post. My excuses include a trip to Guatemala.

I attended a fantastic screening of Paranoid Park by Gus Van Sant on Friday night at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. A professor of Van Sant’s from the Rhode Island School of Design, Marian Marzynski, an accomplished filmmaker himself, spoke about Van Sant’s career and showed 3 of his school films. Paranoid Park was shown and followed by a webcast Q&A with Van Sant, who was in his editing room working on his new Harvey Milk film (which stars Sean Penn). I asked Van Sant if he had been to San Francisco much during the mid to late 70s (he lived in LA at the time) and how shooting in and about San Fran went. Van Sant said he hadn’t heard of Harvey Milk until Harvey was killed, that he hadn’t come out as a gay man yet and definitely wasn’t any sort of activist at that point. I didn’t get a chance to ask a Crime and Punishment question.

In other Harvey news, check out the wicked new look for Harvey Dent. I’m trying to contain my expectations for this movie but the first one may be my favorite comic book movie of all time, the Joker clips look fantastic and now this photo.

(thx Tati for the Harvey Dent link)

Alright, I’ve already purchased 3 Sirius radios in 2008, gotta draw the line somewhere!

The companies’ combined 17 million subscribers have radios that aren’t interoperable. Radios that can receive signals from both companies likely wouldn’t be available for at least a year after the merger - and a year or two after that for customers who get satellite radios via new car purchases.

Sounds like it’ll be another $3 for ‘the works’…

XM and Sirius say they plan to offer eight options that combine the companies’ offerings, such as a “mostly music” package with 65 channels, for $9.99 a month - less than the current flat rate of $12.95. Six of those eight options will be available on current radios.

The two “a la carte” packages that promise the most flexibility, however, will require new radios.

The cheapest “a la carte” option would offer 50 channels for $6.99 a month with additional channels costing 25 cents each, though premium choices, such as the NFL channel, would cost $3 or $6 each per month. Another “a la carte” plan would offer 100 channels for $14.99 a month.

link

I finally got around to watching the Japanese animated film Paprika tonight. I like how the New York Film Festival summed it up:

“If Japan’s most famous anime filmmaker is Hayao Miyazaki, the most sophisticated is probably Satoshi Kon…His new movie plays like a head-on collision between Hello Kitty and Philip K. Dick…and as the characters shuttle from dream to dream, nightmare to nightmare, Paprika becomes a thrilling tour-de-force of visual invention - every frame is packed with imagination. This delightful movie is bursting with ideas about Japanese repression, multiple identities, collective dreams and the dark side of the country’s love of Cute.”

A few sources think the bad guy looks like integral psychologist Ken Wilber.

I may have to grab a few songs from the Susumu Hirasawa soundtrack.

For a moment I questioned how he could have blown all his cash, then I remembered he’s Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Is it a possible that a semi-fictional account of the life of Jean-Claude Van Damme–if made effectively sad and funny, tragically self-aware of the actor’s joke-like status and resumé, while adding a plot about his involvement in a bank robbery–could actually be pretty great?

link (thx norm)

Pretty funny blog. Some of my favorites:

#78 Multilingual Children
#62 Knowing what’s best for poor people
#56 Lawyers
#2 Religions that their parents don’t belong to

link

Amusing site that takes Garfield out of the comic strip. I’ve often thought of Jon as a creepy loner, and perhaps Garfield is just in his mind…

Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

link (thx norman)

If you think you hate the circus, I urge you to check out Spiegelworld. It’s usually stationed in NYC, but is currently wintering in Miami Beach. Oh and don’t bring the kids-although I imagine it’s a 21 and over show.

It’s hilarious, dirty, scary (I don’t think I’d sit in the front row next time), embarrassing and exciting for the entire two hour show. Here’s a good review from the NY Times, but perhaps the best explanation I’ve seen comes from Cindy Adams of the NY Post -”an off-beat European circus on acid - Do not miss it.”

Coming in January there’s a late night lounge show starring the comedy/music relief from the regular show. I’ll definitely be attending.

link

The Onion released it’s annual Worst Band Names list. Some of my favorites:

The Rape Ape
Dance Me Pregnant
Capitalist Hippie Complex
Neil Diamond Phillips

link

Just what I need, another place to waste money on toys!

link

A friend and I went to a showing of the Ralph Nader documentary An Unreasonable Man last night at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. Joe Tom Easely, a friend of Naders who was against his running for president in 2000 and one of the main interviewees in the movie, spoke afterwards and a poli-sci prof from FIU was there to encourage a discussion about the film/moderate.

A very good movie, balanced, as Joe said Ralph feels about it. Unfortunately during the screening one man felt the need to loudly agree with just about any fact about Nader. During the discussion, an older couple decided to try to takeover any dialogue by yelling insults about Nader or anyone that disagreed with them. I felt sorry for the professor.

A hefty price drop apparently. 90,000 HD DVD players were sold this past weekend. I do specifically remember a commercial last week showing a wife making her man happy at the low price of a $99 Toshiba player.

As gizmodo asks, who was responsible?

Good Blu-ray news for today, my 5 free movies just arrived. Tonight shall consist of high def Chicken Little!

Philip V.W. Dodds, credited as Phil Dodds, was an audio engineer who appeared in the motion picture “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Working for ARP Instruments, Inc., Phil was on the set to install and manage the ARP 2500 synthesizer used in the movie to play the five alien tones, and to program it for the sounds the filmmakers wanted. He had performed a similar function on other science fiction films, such as Logan’s Run, and some of the early Star Trek movies.

link (via music thing)

Sounds like a fun night. God bless the Sheboygan Police Department.

A live chicken found in the man’s trunk when police searched the vehicle was taken to the Sheboygan County Humane Society. The man told police he got the chicken from a local fast-food restaurant.

link (via Dallas Wayne on Outlaw Country)

$95 a night is already a steal. Especially in San Fran, especially in a hipster hotel!

Take a stroll through San Francisco’s Nihonmachi, and you sense a vibrant, animé-inspired energy pulsing through the streets of the country’s most thriving Japanese-American community. The ‘hood is chock full of Eastern-influenced architecture, art galleries, Kimono shops and hidden culinary gems—while located just a short hop stop from the bustle of Union Square.

So where should you stay to experience it best? The newly opened Hotel Tomo. Inspired by Japanese pop culture, this boutique hotel features an original mural from Giant Robot fave Heisuke Kitazawa in every guest room, along with a docking station for your iPod, a flatscreen TV and a beanbag chair. There are also gaming suites where you can watch animé movies or play Wii games on six-foot LCD projection screens, and for chow hounds, Mum’s Restaurant, a funky spot that’s known for its amazing all-you-can-eat shabu shabu.

Because they love us (and you!) so much, the good people at Hotel Tomo are offering Pulse readers a special rate of $95 a night on a deluxe king room, subject to availability. Which means you can save your hard-earned coin for more important things, like lots of sake. Just enter the access code “GENART” when you book online, or mention the rate code “D-GENA” to get in on this hot deal!

Here’s a geek sugar video taking a tour of the gaming suites.

link (via gen art)

I’m now the owner of a PS3. Went looking for a high definition dvd player and the best price I could find was $325 for a decent Toshiba. I decided to drop another $174 and get a PS3, which includes a Blu-ray player. So fuck HD-DVD, long live Blu-ray.

So far Sony, Blockbuster and Samsung are on my side. Microsoft becomes more of an enemy.

Picked up The Fountain as a test movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. Five movies came with qualifying players, but that offer forced me into choices such as Stealth, Resident Evil 2, Underworld Evolution or Stir of Echoes. I went with a sweaty Kate Beckinsale.