Mind-Forg'd Manacles

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IMG_7363 Date: 03/12/06 Views: 533

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Welcome to Mind-Forg'd Manacles
Tuesday, September 07 2010 @ 04:53 PDT

The Muppets: Bohemian Rapsody

Tuesday, November 24 2009 @ 12:02 PST
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 196

Definitely the best Bohemian Rapsody cover. Almost certainly the best Queen cover. Possibly the best cover ever.

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Colbert Dance Remix Interview

Saturday, January 10 2009 @ 10:06 PST
Contributed by: Alvin
Views: 492

On last Thursday's Colbert Report, Stephen interviewed Lawrence Lessig, author of Remix, a book about outdated copyrights in the era of digital editing, copying, and remixing. Colbert issued a statement dripping with sarcasm that no one better edit the interview, with say a dance beat. So, here's the interview recut as a music video.

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The Koala Did It

Thursday, December 18 2008 @ 02:55 PST
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 516

This would probably be more interesting if the premise pretended that Koalas are not known to be murderers by nature.

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Toy Monster Truck Rally

Wednesday, November 26 2008 @ 11:46 PST
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 287

A highly detailed stop-motion monster truck rally?

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo. Actually, it's the real deal using time lapse and tilt-shift fake miniature photography.

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One of the best politcal speeches I've seen

Thursday, October 02 2008 @ 09:47 PDT
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 211

And it's not by Obama. Or McCain. Or Clinton. Not a politician at all. A union man. A third generation coal worker, one of the leaders of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka.

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Darh Vader is a Jackass!

Saturday, September 13 2008 @ 10:29 PDT
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 185

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Clone Wars review

Friday, August 15 2008 @ 11:29 PDT
Contributed by: Alvin
Views: 330

It started with a "meh". And got worse. I give away some broad stuff, but you can't spoil something that's already rotten. And some context to keep in mind: My childhood wasn't "raped". I enjoyed Phantom Menace. Revenge of the Sith was better than New Hope. And I think Attack of the Clones vies for my favorite in the entire Saga (contesting with Return of the Jedi, not Empire). So, with that in mind, let's get to it.

For some infathomable reason, the guy they got to compose did a new rendition of the Star Wars Title Anthem. It was bad. Not because it was different, but because it was off key. I could have seen him alter it to make it more warlike, perhaps sound more like the Imperial March. That would have been awesome, because clearly they weren't trying to do a typical Star Wars opening (background dialog started over the Lucasfilm logo, and then no scroll text), which makes sense for the TV show.

But beyond that, the opening battle was just some meaningless battle field. Except for the Seperatists, we're never told why this battle is important, much less what the planet is even called. That would have been fine if it was just an opening scene. But no. Half the movie is spent on the planet and the battle. With bad, hackneyed tactics, worse dialog, and Obi-Wan being turned from a clever leader to a blunderer and executing the worst parlay ever put to film (and I'd wager in the history of armed conflict).

Oh but it gets better. And I mean worse. The droids, and I'm talking about the droid army that's supposed to be the menacing bad guys that make us wonder if our heroes can succeed in the end, are turned into comic relief, not just being a little silly in slow like in Phantom Menace, but despite having computer brains being unable to understand basic math. It's not just a bad, one off joke that might not have been thought through. It's done over and over. R2 and C3PO are barely featured, and when they are, are pretty much not the comic relief for once.

Aside from not actually being funny and defeating the threat of the antagonists, the main problem is that they're simply the first tier of comic relief. The second tier is Jabba's son. An opportunity to see the Hutts from a different angle, he's presented as a joke we have no reason to care about (and since he's the crux of the whole story, this is very bad). Also there's the plucky new Jedi padawan. Who, judging from the dialog and action, decided to become a Jedi on a lark instead of being trained for it her entire life. She also gives characters horrible nicknames. Since this takes place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and she's not in Sith, then her main draw in the contiuing series is seeing how she eventually dies.

And then there's the worst thing to happen to the Star Wars universe. Worse than Jar Jar, worse than all the other things wrong with the movie. Zero the Hutt. A Hutt presented as a New Orleans drag queen, featuring the voice styled after Eric Cartman. And we're supposed to be afraid of this mockery. There is literally a scene where "Respect mah authoritah!" would have fit perfectly. I was tempted to shout it out myself.

Now, among the mess of direction and dialog, is the bad technical execution. The animation is wooden and without energy. In the fight scenes they would often jerk into poses with no fluidity. Quite a few textures looked like they were video game quality. The character design often didn't work so well in the translation from the 2D style to 3D. Jabba's distorted chin cleft was terribly distracting (more so than the bad attempt at Huttese from whoever wrote it).

There was very little redeemable about the movie. Lucas has been pumping the director as a great fit because of his encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars. Clearly, he needs different requirements. He's a "veteran" of Avatar: The Last Airbender - having direct 7 episodes, but he actually spent most of his time on other shows that I've never heard of as a storyboard artist. As bad as this movie was, I'm sure that he and the writers had a fantastic time when they played this story out in their Star Wars roleplaying sessions. They must have been using the first d20 Star Wars too. Everything fits. Inconsistent characters. Uninspired fight scenes. Tons of bad jokes and funny voices. All of it would have worked great to spice up the sluggish game system.

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The Power of the Force... in 3D!

Friday, July 25 2008 @ 10:20 PDT
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 227

Rumors have been floating around about it for quite some time, but it appears that all systems are go for the entire Star Wars franchise to be re-released in the 3D format.

http://gizmodo.com/5028874/confirmed-all-6-star-wars-movies-to-be-released-in-3d

I'm getting in line this evening.

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A Review of Once

Tuesday, June 17 2008 @ 11:11 PDT
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 270

Once is an amazing, beautiful movie. It takes place in Ireland with a busker and an immigrant woman. It's a musical, but completely modern in style. The songs aren't numbers bursting out on the street, but arise from the characters playing or listening to music. They're all "singer-songwriter" style and because of the nature of their integration, they speak to what's going on in a less direct, more poetic way than you usually see in a musical. I actually forgot it was a musical until three songs in when I thought "Wow, I'm surprised they aren't cutting away from this song." The music is intimate and seemless and fits right into every scene.

That's all I want to say. I went into it knowing very little (and forgot the genre), and told The Fiancee nothing about it except she would like it (making a completely uneducated guess, trusting Netflix's recommendation service or whoever recommended it to me).

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Moon Travel in 1945

Tuesday, May 06 2008 @ 12:08 PDT
Contributed by: EZ
Views: 328

http://ironsky.net/

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