October 2005 Archives (14 posts)
Cycling through windows in CS2
How do you “cycle through” all of your open documents in Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Macintosh?
Ever since I upgraded to CS2 I’ve been unable to hit Apple-` or Command-` to cycle through all of my open documents. This key combination used to work in Photoshop 7 and most Macintosh software lets you cycle through all of your open documents like this (including Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2).
After another Google search I finally discovered that Control-tab is the default setting in Photoshop CS2 for cycling through windows. Does anyone know how I can remap Control-tab to Command-` in Photoshop’s Keyboard Shortcuts?
Posted in OS X Software at 2:41 PM | Comments (10)
Power Mac G5 Quad
YIKES! I somehow missed the announcement of the new Power Mac G5 Quad. This may the fastest Power Macs and one of the last Power Macintosh computers before they switch over to Intel chips.
The Power Mac G5 Quad has two dual-core processors running at 2.5 GHz each — 76.6 gigaflops. Huh? Trust me, it’s wicked fast.
Now I know why the system requirements for Aperture are so high (dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster and 2 GB of RAM). I’m running a Power Mac G5 with dual processors running at 1.8 GHz each and 1 GB of RAM. I guess I’ll be using PhotoShop CS2 for a little while longer.
Aperture could be the perfect excuse for me to upgrade my hardware.
Posted in Apple at 10:22 PM | Comments (1)
Posterman
Movie posters galore! Original, rare and vintage film posters can be purchased from Posterman Dan. Even if you don’t want to purchase a poster this online gallery is amazing to look at.
Posted in Movies at 4:40 PM | Comments (0)
Apple Aperture
Apple just dropped another bomb. Today they announced Aperture for professional photographers. This is the first piece of software to challenge Adobe PhotoShop in years and it looks amazing.
The Take a Tour of Aperture movie uses some new QuickTime controls and is also incredible. If you don’t already own a Mac and you’re a photographer using a Windows machine then this application will definitely make you jealous.
The marketing here is fabulous. The video interviews on the Apple site look like they’re all in HD. The interview with Sports Illustrated photographer Heinz Kluetmeier is awesome! I’m ready to buy this software now!
With FinalCut Studio, Logic Pro and now Aperture, Apple has become a power-house in developing software for creative professionals. First the iPod Nano, then the video iPods and now Aperture. It feels like 1984 all over again.
It still blows my mind how innovative Apple is when it comes to hardware and software. They’ve transformed, and some will say “saved” the music industry with iTunes and the iPod. Filmmaking has never been easier or cheaper to do thanks to FinalCut Pro.
As the cost of digital photography continues to plummet and its popularity continues to rise, Aperture will become a significant player in digital imaging software. Adobe PhotoShop is the standard but I think Aperture will take away a lot of Adobe’s business and make the workflow for a lot of photographer much more efficient.
Posted in OS X Software and OS X Software at 12:51 PM | Comments (1)
The Constant Gardener (2005)
Great film! Based on a John le Carré novel, directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God), starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.
I liked this film for a number of reasons. Ralph Fiennes’ character is very plain, sympathetic and believable. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out he wasn’t another British spy. He is perfectly cast in this role, his best since The English Patient.
Brazillian director Fernando Meirelles seems like an odd choice for British thriller but his style is refreshing and compliments a great script. Visually, the film looks like City of God — lots of film grain, saturated colors, shaky hand-held camera, jump-cuts etc.
The film narrative is quite fragmented and seems confusing at first but Meirelles skillfully brings it all together so that the audience has a clear picture of the story in the end. I wish Guy Ritchie was able to do the same for his latest film, Revolver.
Pete Postlethwaite who I mentioned last week in another review pops up briefly and plays an important role in the story. I wish he was used more as an actor. I haven’t seen him in anything spectacular since the Usual Suspects.
Part of the success of The Constant Gardener is the 60 Minutes appeal. The basis of the story could easily be a news story told by Leslie Stahl or Ed Bradley. Do pharmaceutical companies release drugs on the market, knowing that they may be harmful? Merck did this with Vioxx and 60 Minutes did a story on it.
Take this idea a step further and ask yourself if big pharma companies are “giving away” drugs to third-world countries like Kenya. Are they using Kenyans for clinical trials of untested drugs? All of this seems possible and makes for a great novel or film.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)
A while ago I read some decent reviews of Assault on Precinct 13 and decided to give it a spin. It wasn’t Citizen Kane but as far as guilty pleasures go, this crime thriller was pretty good. The action is great and there are a few twists along the way that keep you interested in the plot.
Jean-François Richet directed this remake of John Carpenter’s original Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). The cast is pretty decent — Ethan Hawke, Gabriel Byrne, Laurence Fishburne and Maria Bello (who seems to be in everything this year). The film was also shot in Toronto. I noticed Roy Thomson Hall in one scene but found it difficult to tell that the rest of the film was made here in TO.
Did I mention that there were a few guns in this film? Whoa! The DTS track on this DVD will give you home theatre a major workout. Turn the volume up to 11 and enjoy! A mediocre film like this is so much more interesting to watch when it has a great sound mix with lots of activity in the sub-woofer and surround speakers.
If crime films are your thing and you think that the best movie ever made was Predator then you’ll enjoy Assault on Precinct 13.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 5:18 PM | Comments (0)
VRMAG
Wow! I just came across this online magazine that has tonnes of panoramas and virtula tours using QuickTime VR (QTVR). This isn’t anything new. I first dabbled in QTVR in 1992 at York University but the presentation of this content has vastly improved.
When I was in Paris this spring, I wanted to visit Père-Lachaise Cemetery but ran out of time. A lot of famous people are buried there and there and it is a great place to take some interesting pictures. If you’re going to be in Paris and are considering this cemetery then check out this amazing virtual tour.
The panoramas atop the Matterhorn are also pretty spectacular. I had no idea that QTVR was still this popular.
Posted in Apple and Photography at 2:29 PM | Comments (1)
Redesigned
Apple’s Movie Trailers page has been redesigned and there is a lot of content now available in High Def.
Posted in Apple and Movies at 1:47 PM | Comments (0)
DVDpedia
My DVD Collection has finally been updated. I’m using a great little piece of software for Mac OS X called DVDpedia to track all 283 discs.
A couple of weeks ago my father came by and used his iSight camera to scan the barcodes of all my DVDs into Delicious Library — another Mac OX X software program for cataloging DVDs, CDs and books. Delicious Library has a beautifully designed interface but it doesn’t provide enough detailed information about the DVDs for my needs.
DVDpedia allows you to have a lot of information about each disc such as sound format, video format, aspect ratio, number of discs and more. You can also add custom categories such as Edition — Criterion Collection, Director’s Edition, Ultimate Edition and so on. I find this useful because the money-grubbing studios keep releasing special editions for a lot of their titles.
The interface for DVDpedia borrows a lot from iTunes. You get a nice summary of your collection at the bottom of your window — number of DVDs, number borrowed, number of discs, value of collection and days of viewing. I was surprised to find out that out of the 283 DVDs I have, there are actually 348 discs in my collection.
If you a film geek like me then you can easily keep track of theatrical release dates, country of origin, language, awards and more. There is also a plug-in to IMDB that provides information about movie locations, soundtrack, mistakes, trivia, awards and memorable quotes. A nice touch.
Similar to Delicious Library, you can keep track of who has your DVDs and when they borrowed them. I’m terrible at tracking this type of information so this will help me track down those missing discs in the future.
The last thing I’ll mention about DVDpedia is that you can export your entire collection to your iPod, a web page and a variety of other formats. I created a simple template that can be used to keep my DVD collection on this site up to date.
Posted in OS X Software at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
The Browning Version (1951)
I can’t remember why I rented this DVD but I’m glad that I did. The Browning Version is a British film, directed by Anthony Asquith in 1951. Michael Redgrave plays a bitter school teacher named Andrew Crocker-Harris who feels his life has been a complete failure. His health if failing, his wife detests him and his students see him as a joke.
Michael Redgrave won the prize for best actor at Cannes. His performance as Crocker-Harris is unforgettable. He becomes that quirky teacher we all had at some point in our lives. The voice he created for his character reminds me of Pete Postlewaite’s performance as Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects.
I’m willing to bet that Postlewaite watched the Browning Version a few times and based the character of Kobayashi on Michael Redgrave’s performance. Can anyone confirm this or deny it?
The film is well worth watching if you’ve never seen it. The Criterion Collection disc that I watched has an interview with director Mike Figgis. Turns out he did a remake of The Browning Version (1994) with Albert Finney playing Andrew Crocker-Harris. That disc will be going on my ZipList as well as a bunch of other Mike Figgis films I haven’t seen.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Apple unveils a video iPod
The rumours are true. This afternoon Apple released an iPod that will play video, a new version of iTunes and a slimmer iMac.
If you’ve been purchasing music from iTunes in the last 6 months you’ll know that a number of recent albums have included videos—Coldplay, Neil Young and Billy Corgan. I guess this was a hint that a video iPod was on the way. You’ll probably see more videos bundled with albums to encourage the purchase of music videos.
I wonder how long it will take for my father to break down and upgrade to a new video iPod? After all, that anemic 20 GB colour iPod he just go is a bulky 10% larger than the latest iPods, the battery doesn’t last as long and it has less storage.
Time to upgrade iTunes (again) to version 6.
Posted in Apple at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Last week, the 6-year-old noticed the movie posters, the movie reviews and the Burger King promotion for the latest Wallace & Gromit film. He kept asking when we could go and see it so I happily caved and took him last Friday.
Great film. If you enjoyed any of Nick Park’s other short films featuring Wallace & Gromit then you’ll love The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The stop-motion animation is a nice change from some of the cheap 3D animation that is being dumped on audiences of late.
Ralph Fiennes provides the voice for the character of Victor Quartermaine and does a fabulous job. The writing and the story are also superb. There are plenty of laughs and gags along the way but I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the producers meddled with the script.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Jeffrey Katzenberg insisted on some of the cruder jokes being included in the script. Don’t get me wrong I loved the Shrek movies and think they work quite well. I just felt that some of the jokes seemed out of place and “dumbed down” in the Wallace & Gromit world.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
Revolver (Original Soundtrack)
A couple of days ago I purchased the soundtrack to Thumbsucker from iTunes. This morning I was poking around the Soundtrack section on iTunes and noticed that Revolver was released over a week ago.
Revolver is Guy Ritchie’s latest film that I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. It doesn’t get a North American release until next January but you can enjoy the original soundtrack from iTunes.
Posted in Movies and Music at 9:48 AM | Comments (1)
The Boys of Baraka (2005)
There are many reasons for a film buff to love living in Toronto. Aside from The Toronto International Film Festival there is Hot Docs—North America’s largest documentary festival.
Each month, leading up to the festival, Hot Docs presents a new documentary film in their Doc Soup series. Last night they kicked off the season with Boys of Baraka (2005) directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. Both women were in town to introduce the film and take part in a Q&A afterward.
The film tracks the journey of twenty 12-year-old boys from inner-city Baltimore. These kids are given the opportunity to do their 7th and 8th grade at Baraka—an experimental school in Kenya, East Africa. The school is quite strict and has transformed a number of kids into successful students, well-prepared for high school.
Out of the 20 kids that go to Baraka in the film, 19 are without a father. Most aren’t expected to finish school. Many of their friends drop out of school, become drug dealers, end up in jail, or die on the street. There isn’t a lot of hope for these kids so an education at Baraka is an opportunity to “make it” in the world.
Part of the film is subtitled because its difficult to understand what the kids are saying. When you do get a chance to hear the kids tell their story you’ll be blown away with what they deal with every day, how they think, how hopeless they see their lives being. Many of the kids seem to be much older than 11 and 12 when they start out.
There are a lot of funny moments. My favourite was the kid that wants to be a preacher. He does some “preaching” in the film that will have you in stitches.
There are also a few sad moments that will suck you into the film. One boy visits his father in jail (his father shot his mother in the leg in an argument). During the film, another boy is at Baraka talking to his family on the phone in Baltimore. He asks why his mother isn’t there and the family doesn’t want to tell him that she is in jail. Again. Brutal stuff.
Visit the Loki Films website to find out more about the film and view a trailer.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
