I’ve disabled comments. I’m sick of weeding trhough spam.
I don’t update this thing anymore.
I think this blog is over. I’m going to (maybe) make a new site (eventually) and if you poke around, there’s already something very unfinished on the server.
Thanks for reading.
I thought I’d follow up that video with something a bit more fun and frivolous.
FIVE PROBLEMS WITH SUPERMAN RETURNS
1. Superman is incredibly lame.
Superman is a boring character. He’s close to being utterly devoid of personality and he’s too strong for any character who doesn’t have a contrived method of hurthing him. This doesn’t matter because Superman gets in what I believe to be less than one fight in the whole movie. This brings me to my second problem.
2. Superman doesn’t fight anyone.
There are scenes where people fight him, but he does little and often nothing in terms of retalliation. It’s kind of a waste of such a muscle-bound character to not have him kick ass. It’s almost an insult in this case that Superman’s baby kicks more ass than he does.
3. The Flasback Scene, wtf?
Completely unintroduced, in the first quarter of the film, there is a flash back scene with Superman first beginning to discover his powers. It makes no sense in the context of the film and is confusing. It really makes me wonder why it was in there.
4. Inconsistent Tone
The film starts out with a great serious bit with Kevin Spacey expertly playing Lex Luther. As soon as Lex walks out of the room, he scares a little girl and it’s hilarious. You’re taken straight from a nice serious bit into a nice comedic bit. Both segments worked well but having them together like that just jars you right out of the movie. If the whole movie stayed serious, it would have worked and if the whole thing was more lighthearted it also would have worked.
5. It’s really long and in the end, nothing really happens.
THREE REDEEMING FEATURES OF SUPERMAN RETURNS
1. Kevin Spacey couldn’t possibly be a better Lex Luther.
He mixes egotism with intellect in the best possible way, making him an interesting and mildly despicable character. He’s a villian you can simultaneously hate and enjoy.
2. Two Pomeranians are implied to be eaten in this movie.
That is more Pomeranians I’ve seen eaten than in any other movie.
3. CGI was truly amazing.
I read a long article on CGtalk about the CGI in Superman Returns. Pretty much every shot where Superman is flying is completely rendered on a computer. It’s amazingly realistic and subtle. The little bits like that help you to not feel jarred out of things when they do more far-out CGI. It’s the kind of attention to detail that truly amazes me. It’s the kind of attention to detail that the script and physics in the movie are completely devoid of.
1. Lex Luther has an extremely detailed toy city he built in an old lady’s basement.
It looks extremely silly in the movie and in one part where parts of it break, there are lots of little details on the insides of the models that just scream that it was designed to break in those specific locations.
2. Physics are all over the place.
You can’t expect any rules or consistency from this movie. What will break and what won’t are pretty much just decided by what is convenient for the plot. How much kryptonite that Superman can take is also something that has no real set value.
That was fun. I think I’ll do one of these for another movie.
Here, I have for you, a video that just amazes me. This woman, Wafa Sultan has a lot to say and she speaks with eloquence and authority. I feel like I’m unfairly judging Muslim culture by putting this video up and agreeing with what she says so much but really she’s only got a problem with extremists who believe that all the world should follow a certain religion.
Since I have friends and family who are 56kers, I am not going to embed the video, just link to it.
And for the benefit of those who are on 56k or just don’t want to watch/download a video, I have for you, a textual transcript I got from this site.
Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.
[…]
Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?
Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.
[…]
Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don’t mind…
Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: “I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger.” When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to stop this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.
My colleague has said that he never offends other people’s beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the “People of the Book,” and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians “those who incur Allah’s wrath.” Who told you that they are “People of the Book”? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them “those who incur Allah’s wrath,” or “those who have gone astray,” and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?
I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others’ right to believe in it.
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?
Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural…
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran…
Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.
[…]
Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don’t throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people’s beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.
[…]
Wafa Sultan: The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.
Powerful.
Due to an excessive amount of spam I need to delete, I from now on, forcing all comments to be queued before they appear on the site. Comments will no longer instantly appear. I’m sorry if that bothers anyone.
Sadly, the spam bots have “contributed” more to this site than I have in the last month.
I need to write and show off more crap.
In weak effort to put comment, let me show off the most recent amazing work by a friend of mine, Adam Saltsman.
I’ve seen the way he set up that model. It may look like a fairly simple creation but the way he set it up, it has an amazingly complicated texture setup and modeling means. Each section of the model is a separate part with a different texture to it. Absolutely none of the shading in that model is done by a computer. All you see in that image is the texture at fullbright lighting.
If you have any appreciation for what I just said, then you know that it is a truly amazing piece of work.
He’s got more stuff on his web-site and I recommend checking it out.