Recently in Rants Category
(photo by Antman)
First of, the Wang takes a nice and laid-back drive to work, daily via the beautiful stretch of the east side of the SF proper. This involves passing through the middle of tourist travel routes to the pier 39, the Ferry Building, The Infamous Giant Spider, and the Hell of Pedestrians, (The Chinese have like 18 Hells...) AKA
The AT&T park is located in a nice stretch of the 2nd largest freeway exit area for Downtown SF. Basically, the cooler hipper 280 exits right on to the street that leads to the ballpark. This is also the gathering spot for the Caltrain and the end of the line for a pretty well used Muni light rail. So with all this, this means that the none-car-loving SFians love to walk fill up the 3 small intersections that spans between the park and the Caltrain station. This of course, backs up all the cars trying to exit the 280 freeway. Now this is going one way. The other way of the street is jammed packed with people trying to park, more pedestrians, and the general slowness of the cars in the area. So come baseball season, (and why cant they play on Sundays like the football ppl do? They r nice enough not to bother me...) the whole area in front of AT&T park becomes an even lower level of hell, The Hell of Slow Traffic. One can see an example of this on the 405 between the I10 and El Segundo in LA, but then LA is like a whole other lvl of Hell. (That's needs an entire blog post of its own, one day... Don't get me wrong, I luv and miss LA, no hate man) So baseball season, though happytime for some, utter chaos on the Wang's schedule. And this is the main reason why the Wang has the Giants Schdule as a bookmark, just so he can keep track of the times where baseball becomes the national traffic time.
The 2nd wine and cheese moment for today's post is the whole issue of "Limited Releases". Now when a foreign, indie, art house, or early release of film gets a "limited release", they usually mean LA/NY. So being once a melancholy citizen of the greater LA metro, the Wang was happily partaking in the early release of films that others won't see for weeks to come, or at all. With places in LA like Laemmle chain, the Arclight, and other art house theaters, LA was pretty much a Mecca for films that the studio won't market to large Cineplexes. It took awhile before the Wang discovered all the art house theaters in SF, but they r there, just buried in neighborhoods less traveled. Most of the time the Wang isn't a rush to catch films early, but the Wang has like 2 favorite directors from the 90s, and 1 of them is Wong Kar Wai. Mr. Wong's latest film after his epic 2046 is his English debut, My Blueberry Nights. So the fact that its Limited release means that its is shown in LA RIGHT AT THIS FRAKKING MOMENT and not in SF till 4/18 is pissing the Wang off, only slightly less than the fact that the Giant's baseball season has started.
Now we move to the less whining and more comment portion of the post.
The Wang has always been a fan of Wong Kar Wai, even though some of his films r truly hard to digest. But as w/ 2046, the Wang followed and waited for all the rumors and news about My Blueberry Nights. Much like the matrix and any other esoteric things, Wong Kar Wai's movies are best experienced. So here's a beautiful clip from the My Blueberry Nights... I guess it might be a spoiler since it shows who and who hooks up, but I doubt any of his movies really lives story progression. The Kiss This of course is a scene between Jude Law and Norah Jones. Yes Ms. Jones not only lends her sultry voice to the soundtrack, but also her debut-acting gig. This movie is supposedly done in parts, dealing with difference couples and their stories of love, relationship and companionship. As with all Wong Kar Wai films, he enjoys slow slow editing, saturated lighting, layering of subjects and defining music. And since the lucky folks of NYC and LA have alrdy have their limited releases... (note rant above), the Thighmaster has alrdy graced the web with his review. The Wang hasn't seen it, but much of Wong's films do not disappoint if u r in a certain mindset to absorb all his stuff. Though slow and chaotic, he tends to shine in scenes, characters and ambience, rather than grand stories and plot. So if u don't live in LA or NYC check ur local weeklies or movies showtime sites and see if u r lucky enough to be graced by My Blueberry Nights.
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Here's another one Wong Kar Wai's latest work. He did a series of short movie/commercials for Philips Aurea HDTV:
There's only One Sun
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A nice collection of clips from the Wang's favorite Wong Kar Wai film, Fallen Angel.
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And in case u still haven't gotten enough, here's a great MTV for the Nationals' Fake Empire, which really carries a Wong Kar Wai feel, and should have been directed by him anyways:
THANKYOUs:
Achtung Baby!
So did everyone have a good halloween? The Wang spent most of the night sick, at home, online, vegging. Might do that again today, so expect laziness in the next few days as the coming of November can only mean one thing, no not Thighmaster style invasion, it means that Xmas stuff is coming and it means the Wang might as well hybernate. I mean there's really nothing to look forward to this winter besides the Xbox 360, which seems like a snooze-fest. A few minor movies... but pretty much another season of, "are u with ur love ones?" just to remind us of how we should spend more money to boost the economy and scrafice birds to the almighty God(s). Still if Yoda can bust one out without his cane, maybe the Wang should be more active too. I guess that means more WoW-ing.
THANKYOus:
DataWhat?! and Thighs Wide Shut
An early post today, due to it being fresh on the mind. So last night i finally caught up with Lost, which i've missed for the last 3 weeks. And I all can say is, JJ Abraham can set a scene. Also he's very good at the "flirting" state. Having character get so close together in a "we grew up as neighbors" kinda of way, and then do the usual TV style cock block and finish it off some time 3 season down in a freaky time travel sequence.
Another item of note is definetly is Yoon-jin Kim of the Shiri fame. She was uber hot in this last weeks episode, "...In Translation." Specially since they finally let her remove her Asian shackle business clothing, to reveal a stunning swimmming suit, and some sort of symbolic removal of her ties to her past...(but who pays attention to that stuff?) And as I said to my roomate at the beginning of the show, "The Wang demmands more Bathing montages!"
Though we can tell that JJAbraham has definetly been watching Closer as he slipped in a Damien Rice song at the end called, "Delicate." Damien gettting much fame after his "Blower's Daughter" became the poster song for Closer. Though i do respect JJ Abraham for his pop song/montage scenes at the end of a show, some of the best stuff of Felicity.
So on to Act III...
SO LA City has decided to put some regulations about Cybercafes. Biggest first rule is that we do not talk about cybercafers... NO i mean u need a permit from the police department. Also rules like camera to monitor the doors, limited time for users under 18. No inclosed booth, 20 sq ft. per computer, no more tintied windows ( i mean they do know computer kids cant be in the sun right?), no smoking, no gambling and someone working there has to be over 18.
Apprently this is all on the heels of those cybercafe violence stories from a few years back. Of course any gathering spot for young angst teenagers who just got "pwned" by some "l33t dud3" would be excited to do some real-life ultra violence. Maybe they just need some of that "special milk".
They hard part of this regulation is the definition of a cybercafe. It seems that not all cybercafe-esque places fall into the definition of this regulation. So i guess there's our loop-hole. And if anyone is good at loop-holes, its them computer geeks.
Atleast the good news is they didnt just closed off all the cyber cafes like other more iron fisted countries.
Obiviously this is this news is on the top of all BLOGs, news sites and music lover communities a like. I've not read this act, but from aevery summary i read it seems that with this act, the RIAA can sue people who "encourages" the illegal sharing of music. Thus the free-music loving people of net fear that people like Apple, who make the iPods, can get sued because they make a device that easily lets u store a lot of "possible" illegal music, because simply, they are inducing us with their convient tech. This is one of the summaries:
The 'Induce Act'. will make the 'intentional inducement of copyright infringement' an offense, and this will extend liability to any manufacturer of a device which plays infringed material, or a shop that sells such a device.
There's obiviously a lot of coverage on this, but the most catchy one i read so far is form the register with this nice intro paragraph:
It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod.
Of course the RIAA says this bill isnt meant to target people like Apple, but rather the P2P networks. But most online writers beleive it odes open the door to suits against manufactures of MP3 players.
Wired Article.
a another Wired Article about the bill.
An article by a professor in Japan, that seems to be going around today.
Elcetronic Frontier Foundations' efforts to make a mock lawsuit against Apple, to illustrate the danger of this bill.
The Bill (in PDF).
So um, yes there will be no comdex this year. According to this post at BoingBoing.net (Link). Also Lollapalooza is canceled. So what is a Tech Savy music lover to do this year?
According to the press release, the new company that took over the Comdex brand name, MediaLive, says that they want to re-evaluate the purpose of Comdex and its invovlvement in the IT industry. I mean theres more beyond giving out bags of free toy and T-shirts?? Not sure if this mean anything. Bad IT economy? IT reform? or just that MediaLive need better structure. Who knows, but this feels dramatic for some reason.
