David's Other Blog

Additional posts are located at my other blog site, http://www.ddamico.net/wordpress/.

FaceBook Lamentation

There once was a member of Facebook

who's privates were desired to look.

The friend ignored the plea

"My privates are not free,

and you my friend, are a shnook."

Opinion on X-Men.Origins.Wolverine, no spoilers

Just wanted to share my opinion on X-Men.Origins.Wolverine. I think it is the best of the X movies so far. What makes it so is that it is long on plot and story, not just action. I am not familiar with the origins of any of the X characters although I do have reprints of the first 12 Kirby issues from early 70's. I am almost always disappointed when SF movies sacrifice story for action. The most common action plot is ultimate bad guy against noble good guys. This is what the recent Trek movie centered around and in my opinion, made it weak.

I asked one young guy had he seen the X movie and he said, "no, but I heard it was boring." Well, yeah, if you don't like to think as the plot reveals itself, it would be boring. Not so here.

Movies like the Bond ones capitalize on use of a formula and it works for them. What makes it interesting (much like the X movie) is the slow revelation of facts as Bond travels all over and meets characters that later play an important part of the plot's resolution. The best TV show I can think of for this is Secret Agent with Patrick McGoohan. They were tightly written and always strategically plotted. Oh, and he used no weapons other than his mind.

I will likely see this one again because it is refreshingly sequenced to tell a story and not just exploit CGI work (although there is plenty of CGI to keep us bug eyed).

My opinion. Hope it convinces you to go see the movie.

Girth

I love limericks

A man walk all o'er the earth
seeking his missing self worth.
So big was his waist he couldn't be chased
cause the planet was equal in girth.

Popularity of 3d illustrations

Those of us who shoot 3 dimensional, stereo photos always talk about the stereo effect approximating how our eyes naturally see. Since the reproduced stereo (3D) effect is an approximation, it is an abstraction of reality...but the success of 3D images to the general public is not because of pictures of the world around us, it's going in the direction of fabricated, CGI imagery, which in itself, is an abstraction of the abstraction of how we normally see. Many skeptics still call 3D viewing a "gimmick," as if movies themselves are not also a gimmick (a flat approximation of reality). I guess seeing the real world on the silver screen in three dimensions when we are surrounded by actuality is just too much for many movie audiences. They need drawn illustrations of reality to accept the 3D process. Cross eyed view below...