April 2007 Archives (18 posts)
Toronto Screen Shots at Hot Docs
Mr. McNally has been extremely busy this week, watching films at Hot Docs. He’s been writing reviews at a furious pace for Toronto Screen Shots:
- We Are Together (Thina Simunye)
- The Big Sellout (Der Grosse Ausverkauf)
- Helvetica
- Without The King
- Protagonist
- Billy the Kid
- The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun
If you’re thinking of attending Hot Docs this year, then read some of these reviews. You have 48 hours to see some fabulous films before Hot Docs ends.
Posted in Movies at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
Coda: one-window web development
Panic released a ground-breaking piece of software for what I’ll call real web developers — people that loathe Dreamweaver or FrontPage.
Real web developers:
- code from scratch using BBEdit, Textmate or another dedicated text editor
- constantly refer to code examples in a web browser
- might use a CSS editor like CSSEdit
- use a dedicated FTP program like Transmit
- and if you’re really pro then you’ll hack around in terminal to do
John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a great overview of Coda. If you’re considering on slapping down $69 to try out Coda, then visit his site. I’m ready to drink the kool-aid.
I love Panic’s software products and can’t wait to try Coda.
Posted in OS X Software at 10:35 AM | Comments (1)
Let’s All Hate Toronto (2007)
Director: Albert Nerenberg, Rob Spence
Let’s All Hate Toronto (2006) premiered tonight to a sold out audience at the Bloor Theatre in, Toronto. There was quite a buzz around this film. I was eager to see what people around the country had to say about Toronto and why they disliked it so much.
The film follows Mr. Toronto who travels across Canada to find out why everyone hates Toronto. To encourage feedback, Toronto Appreciation Days are ‘staged’ in public places which lead to some funny situations.
By far, the funniest scene occurs in Edmonton last year, when the Edmonton Oilers made a run for the Stanley Cup. A drunken fan is waving a Toronto Appreciation Day banner. When he realizes what he has in his hands, he drops the banner as if it were on fire.
The film tries too hard to be funny and it failed to keep my interest throughout. Maybe I was turned off by the staged events and some of the phoniness. The Mr. Toronto schtick gets tired halfway through and a lot of the footage is shown again and again.
The best line in the film is “Toronto is like New York on dial-up”. Having been to New York I couldn’t agree more. Toronto is like a village compared to New York.
As a Torontonian I had a very strong interest in seeing this film but when it comes to filmmaking, it’s a pretty average documentary. If I could have changed the channel, I would have flipped to something else.
I hate to be negative about a local film because I know how much work and effort goes into making one but Let’s All Hate Toronto just didn’t do it for me. It raised a lot of interesting things about Toronto but overall it wasn’t compelling enough for this viewer.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 9:41 PM | Comments (2)
Use Xtorrent to subscribe to RSS torrentcasts
Xtorrent is my BitTorrent client of choice on Mac OS X. I didn’t know is that Xtorrent’s RSS features can be used to subscribe to torrents of my favourite TV shows. I can subscribe to Entrouage or House and not worry about missing an episode.
Deskpopp has a short tutorial on how to set Xtorrent to automatically download your favourite TV shows.
Posted in OS X Software at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
76% blog for family and friends
Back in July 2006, Pew Internet published some interesting results from a national phone survey of bloggers. Here are some of the results of that survey with my comments:
76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.
I started this blog primarily for family and friends as a way to keep in touch when I can. Life can get really busy sometimes and weeks can go by before you pick up the phone to call someone you haven’t spoken to.
54% of bloggers are under the age of 30
At age 38, I’m in the minority here.
64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.
I couldn’t agree more. That’s the great thing about blogs. Using a search engine you can find just about anyone with an interest in Jules Dassin films to Kodiak chewing tobacco.
Out of the 12 million blogs that are out there (according to this survey) only 7% focus on entertainment and 4% focus on technology. If you read Digg everyday you might find this hard to believe.
You can find our more information about this survey here.
Posted in Blogs at 9:49 PM | Comments (0)
Bloody Chickentown
If you watched The Sopranos on Sunday night then you might be wondering who performed the song that played over the last scene and the credits. Evidently Chickentown is the name of the song and it was performed by punk-poet John Cooper Clarke.
Evidently Chickentown is from Clarke’s 1980 album Snap, Crackle & Bop. Clarke raps over some drums to create a dark, haunting song that was ahead of its time. The music works perfectly with the tone of the latest Sopranos episode.
I’m always amazed how David Chase and the show’s producers manage to come up with some obscure piece of music that blends perfectly with a particular scene. Reuters says that the show “will be remembered as the series that had the best music in the history of TV”.
More info on John Cooper Clarke:
johncooperclarke.com
myspace.com/johncooperclarke
Posted in Music and Television at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)
Final Cut Studio 2 Released
The big news at NAB today is that Apple released Final Cut Studio 2. It includes Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4 and a new piece of software called Color (professional color grading application).
I haven’t even come close to figuring out all of the apps in Final Cut Studio. The upgrade price from Final Cut Studio is $499 (US). Not bad for such an impressive array of audio/video tools. The new 3D tools in Motion look incredible and might give people less reason to use Adobe After Effects.
The number of new features in all of these apps makes it difficult to keep up with and seems to forces you into becoming a specialist. How many people can shoot, edit, create motion graphics, design and author a DVD, compress video with confidence for podcasts and download and edit audio?
On top of that you might be a web designer/developer that needs to be able to stay current with trends, know Photoshop inside and out for production and stay on top of XHTML/CSS development and more.
I’m feeling overwhelmed but excited about learning some of the new features in Final Cut Studio.
Posted in OS X Software at 3:24 PM | Comments (0)
Goggle on the Importance of Video
Wired recently did an interview with Google CEO, Eric Schmidt that I found really interesting. I’ve been trying to figure out where Livebait.tv might lead to in the future and to be honest, I have no idea. But I know I’m on the right track when Schimdt says:
People are using video everywhere. People are building communities of people who use video. They’re sharing them. YouTube’s traffic continues to grow very quickly. Video is something that we think is going to be embedded everywhere.
Livebait.tv has been a little slow going lately but we have a lot of interviews lined up and we’re going to be working with the Drake Hotel in Toronto to produce more content. Producing content isn’t new or groundbreaking but we’re filling a niche where nothing else exists at the moment (in Toronto) and that’s exciting.
Posted in Web at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
Flak Photo
I just came across Flak Photo, a really good photoblog edited by Andy Adams. The site describes itself as:
Flak Photo is a daily photography blogzine featuring distinctive work from an international community of contributors. It aims to promote interesting visual approaches to seeing the world and celebrates the art of exhibiting quality photography on the web.
Bookmarked. This is a great site with a lot of links to some great photography.
Posted in Photography at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)
Leopard in October
The Apple rumour sites will have to find something else to talk about. Earlier today, Apple announced that OS X 10.5 (Leopard) won’t be released until October. To keep iPhone on schedule for a June launch, Apple had to borrow resources from their OS X team.
I’d rather wait for a solid release of the operating system than deal with applications quitting unexpectedly.
Posted in OS X Software at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
Grindhouse chopped in two
Never underestimate how dumb people can be. Guardian Unlimited is reporting that Grindhouse is going to be split into two separate movies after a bad opening weekend.
North American audiences thought Grindhouse was only one film and left after Death Proof, one of two films directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. I was surprised by how poorly Grindhouse did on the weekend but I guess it wasn’t marketed properly.
You try to give people two movies for the price of one and they can’t be bothered. Harvey Weinstein is banging his head against a wall somewhere. I better hurry up and see the films before the theatres start charging for each of them.
Posted in Movies at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
Children of Men (2006)
I really wanted to watch Children of Men (2006) last Saturday but the 200 copies at the local Blockbuster were gone. What’s a guy to do when he has company over and has to make a good film pick? I paid full price for the DVD and I feel it was worth it.
Children of Men was on a lot of top ten lists last year and a lot of critics considered it to be the best film of the year. Was it better than Pan’s Labyrinth or The Departed? Hard to say. My favourite is still Pan’s Labyrinth.
Children of Men is dark, beautiful and definitely not a mainstream popcorn flick. It’s the type of film that stays with you long after it ends and will have some people wondering why they spent 109 minutes watching it. I enjoyed it and need to watch it again.
Set in the future, Children of Men presents a world where humankind is on the brink of extinction. A killer virus wiped out all the world’s children and left the adults infertile. Amidst all the anarchy and chaos, a pregnant woman appears with a miracle child, a saviour for the world.
Like The Matrix before it, Children of Men will surely inspire a number of university courses along the lines of “The Christology of Children of Men”. The biblical references run deep and will make this a popular film to analyze and discuss.
There were many incredible scenes in this film but the one that stuck with me the most involves the crying baby. The presence of this miracle child and its crying voice is louder than the deafening crackle of automatic gun fire. It’s one of those cinematic moments that you’ll remember for years—think Schindler’s List and the scene with the child in the red coat.
In the last few days there’s been quite a buzz about the incredible cinematography in this film—the long takes and the magnificent camera work will have you scratching your head. There is a lot to enjoy about this film if you’re willing to participate in it while you watch it.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 11:33 PM | Comments (4)
The Fallen Idol (1948)
The Fallen Idol was directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene — the same team that created one of my favourite films, The Third Man (1949).
In The Fallen Idol, Baines the butler (Ralph Richardson) is suspected of killing his wife. The only witness to her death is a little boy named Phillipe (Bobby Henrey) with an active imagination.
The film is a good thriller that leaves you guessing right up until the end when everything gets resolved. Innocence, faith and betrayal are a few of the themes that are examined in this suspenseful drama.
Richardson is perfectly cast as “the fallen idol” and the performance by Phillipe is incredible considering he was an untrained actor and dealing with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A documentary on the DVD explains how Reed patiently worked with the child actor to keep him focused and deliver his lines. The resulting performance is brilliant.
There is a night scene where young Phillipe is running through the streets of London that will remind you of Orson Welles, running through the streets of Vienna in The Third Man. Rent (or buy) this film if you enjoyed The Third Man.
The audio and video quality of this new, restored version of the film is what you’d expect from The Criterion Collection. Excellent!
Posted in DVD Reviews at 9:58 PM | Comments (0)
Outdoor Photography Canada
I was surprised to see a new Canadian magazine on the newsstand called Outdoor Photography Canada. It’s very similar to Outdoor Photography from the UK but with a Canadian perspective.
If you have an interest in Canadian landscape photography then you won’t want to miss an issue.
Posted in Photography at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)
Souvenirs (2006)
The documentary film, Souvenirs (2006) had its Canadian premiere at the Bloor Theatre in Toronto tonight. Directed by Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat, Souvenirs received a Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Doc Aviv Festival.
The angle? His father had a few girlfriends in Holland and it’s possible that he might have left behind some “souvenirs” — children by two Dutch women.
So, father and son go on a road trip through Europe in search of lost lovers and siblings. What transpires is a charming and funny adventure where Sleiman and Sharar get to know each other better. The film also explores the role of the Jewish Brigade in the British army during the war.
I enjoyed Souvenirs a lot. Sleiman and his son aren’t very close but by the end of the film they make a connection that strengthen’s their relationship. You also gain some insight into life during the war through Sleiman’s many stories. And of course there are a few surprises along the way as Sharar tries to find out if he has any brothers or sisters from his father’s Dutch girlfriends.
Shahar Cohen was on-hand for a Q&A after the film. I was surprised to find out that he had written a script for his documentary film! The script was completed before filming but only used as an outline for how Shahar wanted the film to unfold.
At times Shahar and his co-director Halil Efrat “manipulated” Sleiman by getting him worked up to make a few scenes more dramatic. They also filmed a lot of interviews of Jewish Brigade members to trick Sleiman into thinking that the film was about the Brigade and not focusing solely on him.
I’m sure that their are some documentary purists that would frown upon these Michael Moore-like tactics but it does make for a more interesting film. 
Films are rated from 1 to 4 stars.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
The Average Blog Has One Reader
There’s an interesting story over at Smartmoney.com titled “10 Things Your Blogger Won’t Tell You”. Whose blogger is the article referring to?
Aside from the cryptic title and the article’s attempt to dismiss blogs altogether, it raises some interesting questions such as. “How many people actually read your blog on a daily basis?”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a recent gathering of U.K. politicians that the average blog has just one reader: the blogger.
There are 74 million blogs out there according to Technorati. A lot of these blogs haven’t been updated in 2 years or more so it doesn’t surprise me that the average blog has a single reader.
If you update your blog on a regular basis, write well, and have interesting/useful content you’ll have a readership. I’ve been at it for 5 years and my site receives a fair bit of traffic.
The growth of new blogs might be slowing down but that doesn’t mean their popularity is on the decline. If anything there is more of a shakeout going on where long-term blogs are increasing their readership.
Posted in Blogs at 7:19 PM | Comments (5)
Tighty-whities
A little while ago, I was getting dressed and ready for work. Still half-asleep, I grabbed some underwear out of the drawer and squeezed into them.
I couldn’t figure out why they were so tight. I’ve put on a few pounds in the last year but this was ridiculous. I took them off and tried on another pair. Phew! I could breathe again.
It turns out that the wife accidentally put 7-year-old Daniel’s tighty-whities in my drawer! Daniel thought this was absolutely hilarious. So every now and again he slips into my room and throws a pair of his underwear in my drawer.
This morning he was giggling while he was getting dressed and I couldn’t figure out why. I went to throw on some briefs and sure enough, at the top of the drawer were a pair of his tighty-whities. Again.
When I discovered his little prank he couldn’t stop giggling. He was proud of himself for tricking his old man again. The kid is a real joker and that puts a smile on my face.
Posted in Personal at 3:52 PM | Comments (2)
Lightroom vs Bridge and DAM
I’m reading The DAM Book, Peter Krogh’s excellent book on Digital Asset Management for photographers. He suggests that you use Adobe Bridge and iView MediaPro to manage your digital photos. But what about Adobe Lightoom and Apple Aperture?
When Krogh’s DAM book was published in 2006, Adobe Lightroom was still in beta and Adobe Photoshop CS3 was still in development. To make matters even more confusing, Microsoft purchased iView MediaPro recently.
I did a search for ‘lightroom vs bridge’ and found an interesting Q & A with Photoshop expert Scott Kelby. He suggests that you don’t use Bridge and Camera Raw!
I think Lightroom is significantly better than the Bridge for importing, sorting, comparing, adding keywords, editing metadata, viewing photos, and…well…I can’t think of anything the Bridge really does better for photographers than what the Library module of Lightroom does.
I had to find out if Krogh felt the same way as Kelby. On The DAM Book website forums, Krogh says this about Ligtroom 1.0:
…if you are a single computer user, without a large economic stake in your images, who does not already have some kind of DAM implemented, then Lightroom is probably just fine.
Krogh suggests that there are some problems with version 1 of Lightroom in terms of bugs and features that were left out due to time constraints. I can live with that. Lightroom is a product that will improve with time. I’d rather put my money behind an Adobe product than a Microsoft one that might not be supported on the Macintosh in 5 years.
The great thing about Krogh’s book is that you can apply his workflow methods to various software applications like Lightroom or even Aperture. So should you use Adobe Bridge and iView Media Pro as Krogh suggests? Or should you listen to Scott Kelby and go with Lightroom?
My money is on Adobe Lightroom.
Posted in OS X Software and Photography at 2:17 PM | Comments (2)
