I just watched the trailer for the upcoming Bruce Willis film Surrogates, and the concept is pretty interesting. To be honest, I am not familiar with the original comic book series that
The year 2017 is a future in which humans live in near-total isolation, never leaving the safety and comfort of their homes, and only communicating with their fellow man through remotely-controlled robotic bodies that serve as “surrogates”, designed as better-looking versions of their human operators. Because people are safe all the time, and damage done to a surrogate is not even felt by its owner, it is a peaceful world free from fear, pain, and crime
Matrix without the virtual reality – anchored in the real world.
I just watched the trailer for the upcoming Bruce Willis film Surrogates, and the concept is pretty interesting. To be honest, I am not familiar with the original comic book series that it is based on, the concept seems rather interesting:
I’m not sure how interested I am in yet another Bruce Willis action film however, the state of the world in the film is more than enough to get me to see the film. To me, it seems a little bit like the Matrix, without the artificial virutal reality world. It seems that in Surrogates people are able to do whatever they want, whenever they want without the usual physical limitations. It’s fascinating to think about living in a world where you can we whoever you want, and do whatever you want without any sort of ‘real world’ implications on yourself. It raises so many thoughts about how this would effect our humanity and day to day lives if we are not achored in a world with direct consequences for our actions
I am interested in learning much more about the technology, and how society changed to make this so prevalent. Who made the surrogates? How were they sold/given to people? How do the real people manage never leaving the house? and How did society come to accept this?
The last couple of weeks we have been blessed with two amazing film releases with Inglorious Basterds and District 9 , these films completely saved the summer movie season from being a complete bust. However, it seems that the streak is going to be coming to an end because the prospects for this week’s releases are a little bit disappointing to me. Coming out this week Halloween II, The Final Destination, Taking Woodstock.
I don’t see myself seeing Halloween II or The Final Destination this week (or ever for that matter!). I am generally not that much into horror/thriller movies because I often have the reaction to laugh at the extremely violent/scary points rather than become completely scared as intended. This films are often thin on interesting plot and heavy on grotesque violence. If they get good reviews, I would consider checking it out on DVD, or On Demand, but that’s about as far as I can go.
With respect to Taking Woodstock, the plot surrounding Woodstock – particularly the story of Elliot Tiber, a young man how helped the Woodstock organizers after the plug was pulled on their event, is on the surface interesting to me. I think that in light of the recent media attention of Woodstock’s 40th anniversary I have just heard/seen my share about it for the next little while. It’s interesting to hear about how much an iconic and historic event came together, however this is simply a case of too much of a good thing. I don’t think that I’m alone in this respect and I can’t help but think that this movie should have been released ahead of the Woodstock saturation
Looks like I’m going to have to find something else to do with the weekend…
I recently starting reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and so far I have found that it is extremely informative and is reshaping the way that I think about food. So far, I have only completed the chapter on corn, and while I realized that Corn was extremely important to farmers, but I never really thought that I was a big corn eater. I simply didn’t understand to what level it is used in the manufacturing of all sorts of processed food products and in fact the average person consumes a ton of Corn a year.
At the end of the day, Pollan outlines how corn has moved from a real food source to an industrial raw material The process of ‘wet milling’ creates an amazing amount of by products that are used by all sorts of the manufactured food industry – citric and lactic acid, glucose, fructose, ethanol, sorbital, mannitol, xanthan gum, and the list goes on and on. If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen these products listed time and time again on product’s packaging but never had any idea where they came from.
Overall, incredibly interesting to learn where these processed foods come from – and Pollan goes on to discuss how we have become an ‘industrial eater’ who has evolved to consume corn is all these ways into an amazing eater of processed foods. In so many of the food that you consume corn suppliers the carbohydrates, soy supplies the protien and the fat can come from etiher plant. Using these building blocks food is not longer grown – it is manufactured and processed into anything. It is something that I have totally taken for granted during my life, and Pollan’s explanation will help me make more informed buying decisions in the future.
I expect that this reading just 200 pages of this book will drastically change my diet. This motivates me to move closer to ‘real food’ – that is using more and more real fruits and vegetables and less of the manufactured and processed foods. I have always looked at the nutritional facts of the food that I purchase, but I think that I will play closer attention to exactly what is going into the food that I eat. It is absolutely terrifying to think that a scientist is taking various corn and soy products to create ‘food’ in a laboratory.
Pollan does an excellent job of outling the history of Corn farming in the midwest and exactly how the economics of farming have brought us to the point we are at today. I can only hope that the remainder of the chapters make me stop and think as much as the first chapters did.
I just got back from Quentin Tarantino’s latest effort, Inglourious Basterds, and while it was not at all what I expected, I thought it was excellent. From a couple of interviews that I heard with QT – I figured that this would be a classic ‘elite army mission film’ akin to Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare. While the general spirit was there, there simply wasn’t enough action to live up to those comparisons.
This is especially because the beginning of the film was extremely slow and dialogue intentive. There are a number of scenes that are 10 to 15 minutes in length that are very minimal in action and very heavy on dialogue. I don’t think it was a bad thing – it was perfect at setting the scene for the brutality that would come later. This is especially true for the initial introductions of German SS Colonel, Hans Landa also known as the Jew Hunter (played by Christoph Waltz). The dialogue is so enthralling and the Colonel is so convincing that by the end of Chapter 1 of the film, you are almost cheering for him to successfully locate the Jews that he is hunting.
While the first two thirds of the film is rather slow moving, by the end you have completely forgotten that thought and you realize that while each of the previous 4 chapters were rather lacking in terms of brutal action, it was really a Quentin Tarantino building to a masterful crescendo. The sparse use of blood and brutal action (at least to the point that you would expect from Tarantino) only make it that much more startling when the blood is flowing later in the film. In the end, the movie lives up to the hype of depicting the perfect ‘Jewish revenge’ that could have been.
The majority of the reviews of this film discuss how Waltz’s Colonel Landa stole the film. I agree that Waltz’s performance was absolutely masterful, however I was left absolutely fascinated by Brad Pitt’s portrayal of the Basterds leader, Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Raine is almost a modern day outlaw cowboy who is willing to do anything necessary for his cause – killing Nazi’s. Pitt steals every scene with the help of Tarantino’s amazing writing. He has some of the most memorable lines of the film with vulgar, brutal comedy.
I almost wished that Tarantino had focused more readily on this character – I am left wondering so many things about where Raine come from, why he is so angry with the Nazi’s, and what happens to him after the end of the film. This is something that I haven’t heard many others say, Pitt is almost scene as an afterthought by many in comparison to Waltz, or Eli Roth’s performance of ‘The Bear Jew’, however I absolutely mesmerized by his performance.
Overall, it is safe to say that Tarantino has done it again. He was pretty much created his own genre of film and it comes across perfectly. It is absolutely great to see some original thoughts in this world, and I only wish that there was more of it.
I have recently become completely enthralled by Matt and Kim’s Daylight. I haven’t really been able to fully understand the song to the point where I can discuss the meaning to any great extent. In fact, they were nice enough to post the lyrics which left me even more confused. Either way, the beat is absolutely mesmerizing, and I simply can’t get the hook out of my head. I can highly recommend their full length albums, Grand which includes this one along with a whole bunch of equally catch songs.
Just finished watching the newly released Avatar teaser trailer 3 times in a row, and I must admit that I am not entirely sure what to think.
The computer generated elements look absolutely beautiful, even in Quicktime. The colors looked amazingly vivid, so it seems that at the very least the movie will be very pretty on the big screen. In particular I found the flying beings that the Aliens were riding, and the lush vegetation to be absolutely striking.
But I found it very jarring as it switches between the computer generated elements and the live action. Cameron has said that the split will be about 60/40, however the trailer does not seem to represent that ratio. In this teaser, I think that it looked like the computer elements were tacked on – it did not seem like they were all of one world. This especially struck me in the scene where the aliens are awaking in some sort of laboratory (just past half way).
I hope that Cameron is able to pull this off, but as of now I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to be buy into the hype. I am interested in seeing a full length, conventional trailer that makes some more of the real plot points evident. Reading summaries of the plot online, it seems on the surface to be an archetypal story.
I’m not sure if it is because as part of my day to day job I am so mired in standard operating procedures that I have only one ‘right’ way to accomplish anything, but recently I have had this insatiable need to express myself creatively.
I have been tinkering around with a couple of different means to achieve this goal, and I haven’t found something that I am particularly proficient in yet. At some level, I think that I have spread myself too thin – pursuing writing, guitar and even pencil drawing from square one all at the same time, moving from one to another as I realize that it’s not living up to the idealized vision I had in my mind.
For example, I got this great idea that I wanted to learn guitar. I purchased the equipment, bought the books and tinkered around with the guitar for about 3-5 days total, and then gave up. I still haven’t figured out why I haven’t tried harder – perhaps it is is because I had unrealistic, almost romantic thoughts that I would be a rock star within a matter of days and when that didn’t happen I became extremely frustrated.
It’s hard to stay motivated in the learning of an art such as music when starting out is so much about failure. You can’t put your fingers in the right place, can’t read the music and simply can’t make the instrument sound the way it should. To be completely honest, I thought that there was something wrong with my guitar until a friend came who had been playing for years. He picked it up, and within seconds it sounded amazing. If anything, this only made me more intimidated to really put the work in because it turns out that I was the problem.
As I get the ball rolling on learning learning the ‘art’ of creative writing, I am really reminded of these sorts of failtures. I must realize that I am not going to put a story down off the top of my head and win a Hugo Award. I have to try, and I have to fail before I can succeed.
I think that Geoffrey Ballard summed this up the best- “Failure is the mechanism of learning”.
Recently, I have been reading Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain, and I have been absolutely loving it. This alternate history novel takes place 20 years after the Confederacy won the American Civil War. The novel outlines the circumstances of the Second Mexican War, which started after the Confederates purchased of the northern Mexican provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua.
What fascinates me in particular is the point of divergence between recorded history and this timeline, which is outlined in the prelude of the book which surrounds General Lee’s Special Order 191 which outlined plans for an invasion of the north.
In recorded history a Confederate messenger lost the order, The orders were found by Union soldiers, and was key to the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam.
In How Few Remain, the orders are instead recovered by another Confederate soldier. McClellan is caught by surprise, enabling Lee to achieve victory and eventual independence from the United States.
This seemingly inconsequential event in the course of history has drastic consequences to all the history after it. Abraham Lincoln lives and is a professional orator expounding the writings of Karl Marx, the French and English are strong allies of the Confederates, George Custer and John Pope are almost demonized as they lead a US mission to quell a Mormon rebellion in Utah, among other important changes to history.
I find it fascinating that such a small event could have such an incredibly large impact. It seems similar to stories (does anyone know one in particular?) of a time traveller going back in time, only to swat a fly that is pestering him without thinking twice. When he returns to his own time, he finds it drastically different from when he left. The fact that something so small can have such far reaching effects really makes one think about how the drastically our future could be changed by a minor decision or action that we wouldn’t even think twice about.
Turtledove is able to make this alternate history incredibly believable If you’re not too caught up in the individual actions and personalities of these historical figures, the characters as they are laid out in the book operate in a very logical manner. All the historical figures used as characters are key to the plot – avoiding the common pitfall of alternate history novels interspersing cameos for the sake of setting the historical scene. The reader is left believing that this is exactly what would have happened had the Civil War ended in this way.
I look forward to seeing how this timeline progresses in Turtledove’s Great War Trilogy which shows the alternate history of World War I. I will post my thoughts on those other novels as I finish them.
My name is Greg, 26 years old and I live in Cambridge, Ontario. This site covers my point of view on all forms of culture focusing on discussing where we’ve been and where we are going. If you have any questions or comments please email greg AT childofthefuture.ca
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I just got back from Quentin Tarantino’s latest effort, Inglourious Basterds, and while it was not at all what I expected, I thought it was excellent. From a couple of interviews that I heard with QT – I figured that this would be a classic ‘elite army mission film’ akin to Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare. While the general spirit was there, there simply wasn’t enough action to live up to those comparisons.
