The Wall Street Journal today reports that the new trend in Japan is to base mainstream media like TV and books on blogs and other internety stuff like chat room logs. For example: A blogger who complains about how evil his wife now has a spin-off TV series, comic-book, novel and soon a movie. The content is often taken verbatium from his posts. I breifly considered finding you his blog, but its probably slammed and in Japanese so I lost intrest.

It's not the worst idea. If reality TV is so popular then reality books and movies should be a slam dunk. My problem is the name. Books based on blogs are being called "blooks". BLOOKS! It kinda makes you want to vomit, yes? But I'm a whore for a good bandwagon so I want to be on the record as coining the term Blovie to refer to a movie based on a blog.

Labels: art, culture, global, internet

# posted by Max : 10/05/2006 02:35:00 PM 0 comments

Spring has sprung in Butte. Which means all the projects that got halted because of weather last year are in full swing. Businesses are painting; the city is tearing up the streets. I came around the corner this morning to discover a crew snapping a chalk line down the sidewalk. "Ga! They are tearing up my sidewalk. Why wasn't I informed?". Turns out its public art. The line speaks to our divisions visa-vi property delineation or whatever. A bit too high concept for my feeble mind. Nice people though.

Read more about the art in the Montana Standard.

Labels: art, Butte, image, Montana

# posted by Max : 5/16/2006 09:58:00 PM 0 comments

Us journalists (Jesus, I kill me). Um yes; Us journalists have a dilemma when it comes to rankings for food, books movies, etc. If we've done a good job in the editorial section of our review then a simple rating shouldn't be necessary. The rating is probably more of a distraction. Ratings are an appeal to the lowest common denominator among us who wants content without depth. But, yet... so handy and ubiquitous are ratings that it's natural and expected to use them.

So going forward I will be changing the way I rate movies. Instead of a letter grade (which are great because they are so clear) I'll be switching to something more descriptive, more important, and more relevant to you the reader than just a simple rating of movie quality. Instead I will be making a terse suggestion of what you should do. Example: Saving Private Ryan would go from an A- to "pay full price". This new rating reflects not only the quality but the perceived importance of the film while also taking into account the relative value of watching films in a particular medium.

The ratings I'll be using for now will be following: "Avoid", "Catch on TV", "Rent", "Matinee", "Pay Full Price", and the ever rare "Opening Night". I reserve the right (as I always do) to change these ratings up all willy-nilly.

The clever amongst you have probably already realized a weakness in the new system. Example: Finding Nemo is a good movie that is probably best seen in the theater, and I might well recommend "Matinee" but by now its not in the theaters any more. Well... tough. You'll just have to do the best you can. And plus, sometimes things do go back to the theaters, or sometimes be found at a second run cinema.

Huzzah! I have spoken.

Labels: art, movies, review

# posted by Max : 4/22/2006 12:02:00 AM 3 comments

Star Wars is over. Did you notice? This leaves a big hole in the universe of new SciFi content. I don't have TV, so I'm certainly not up on all the latest offerings but I do see a glimmer of a trend. I'll call it Neo-SciFi. Why? well because I want to coin a popular term (though it already seems in danger of being shortened to Neo-Fi). But I digress.

What is this Neo-SciFi you speak of? Its SciFi but with a new direction. Old SciFi is often typified by bad cliches:

• False Drama - "Gads the Robo-Mutant-Aliens are attacking, again!".
• One Dimensional Characters - the Dashing Idealistic Captain, the Buxom Nurse/Doctor/Psychic, or the Brash Loner Rebel
• The Magic Episode Reset Button - "Last week I got my stomach blown out, but this week I'm great!".
• Idiotic and Impotent Bad Guys - Week after week supposedly dangerous bad guys unload massive stock piles of ammunition and take heavy casualties; all while not putting a scratch in the good guys.
• Next Time on a Special Blossom - Uh oh, all the episodes are mostly the same! Better throw in a moral lesson episode. It's wrong to borrow without asking. "Glue, I need Glue!".
• Laser Pellets - Space fighters fly like jets, there is lots of sound in space, everyone and everything has a laser/photon/blaster on it. Lasers shoot pellets instead of beams, All planets are just like earth, all aliens are just people with bad acne.
• Uh, Its The Radiation - All this crazy technology, but because the gewiz-a-ma-hicky could solve everything and leave you with no episode; either we have to conveniently forget we have it or its magically disabled by an ion storm.

It's no wonder that female readers (and a good fraction of the males) probably stopped reading as soon as I said Star Wars. Further, its no wonder I don't have a date tonight.

Neo-SciFi is more drama and less SciFi. Like a good drama its motivated by characters, the interplay between them, the choices they make, the consequences of those choices, and how that forms a feed-back loop to the characters themselves. Further, in a good drama this is largely grounded by some gist of reality. This new trend is typified by Serenity/Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, and to a lesser extent Enterprise.

My blurb Here is unlikely to convert anyone. But If your on the edge about sci-fi you might want to add the first season of Battlestar Galactica and the Serenity movie to your Netflix cue.

Oh, and when the first Oscar for "Best Neo-SciFi" is given out you'll remember that you read it here first.

Labels: art, culture, space, television

# posted by Max : 1/19/2006 06:17:00 PM 0 comments

For the unaware: Postage rates have gone to 39 cents. Which may or may not dismay you. But what has dismayed me is the horrifically ugly Lady Liberty Flag stamp. This stamp is the generic stamp for those who ask for "some of the new stamps". A note to the United States Postal Service: Clearly you need some graphic artists. While I'm not the best I'm clearly better than what you have. Drop me a line. Some free tips: First while the image looks high quality here all this photographic detail becomes a grainy mess when compressed to stamp size. Second the hard edge between the Statue of Liberty and Old Glory has a super fake Photoshop look to it; It's as if the artist wanted to fool us into thinking that the whole composition exists. Perhaps I'm picking nits, but then again this is my website and I like to pick nits.

Lady Liberty, I apologize for the USPS's transgression on your image.

Labels: art, culture, image

# posted by Max : 1/18/2006 09:52:00 AM 0 comments

Some of the fine art on finds in a developer's packet property.

Mural.

Labels: art, image

# posted by Max : 8/20/2005 10:06:00 AM 0 comments

The new batman movie was quite enjoyable. I like the usage of the Scarecrow as sorta thinner mid-tier DC baddie that didn't overwhelm the more important hero's journey elements of the batman backstory. A more compelling character like the Joker would have been too much.

Keeley is off for a few days. She sorta sprung that on me after I offered her the job. Rampant grumpiness has ensued.

Keri is in town. We are going to the Virginia City Follies (I think) tomorrow. I'm debating stopping by and hastling Bartender Girl some more. But it's probably a wasteful and self-destructive endeavor. But I don't want her to think I'm seeing Keeley. Keeley and Craig mentioned a hot raven-haired woman was at a newish coffe shop. I saw her at the Art Walk. They are quite right. Very Tasty. It requires further investigation.

The Art-Walk was pretty nifty. Its where a number of temporary "Phantom Galleries" are put up with all manner of artists. We had a "Phantom Gallery" here with a Yellowstone themed ceramics artist and a regional outdoorsy photographer. Very cool.

Labels: art, Butte, culture, Montana, movies, recomendation, review

# posted by Max : 6/17/2005 09:58:00 PM 0 comments