Linkstew

My mom and I had a conversation about my post about The Monkees the other day. The first thing she brought up was that back in the day, bands had "fan magazines" so that folks could keep up on what the band was doing. And once I was reminded of that, I remembered that even TMBG did something like that up through the mid-90s.

But her more interesting remark was that "People want more information these days." This struck me as a profound observation, but I think there's still a question of causality. Is an increasing demand for information being met by an increasing supply? Or is more information being made available because people will consume it?

And that raises another question: Are people being given the information they want, or are they just consuming the information the information they're given? Is it demand driven or supply driven? That is, is the mainstream media covering what people actually want to know, or are they covering what will get ratings?

Unfortunately, for now all I have are the questions without any good answers. But I do have a funny quote from my mom: "I know more about Paul McCartney's life now than I did back then." Hopefully that distracted you.

I'm generally of the opinion that a sequel with a subtitle is just bound for trouble, and a subtitle at all is a questionable tactic. So Jurassic Park III was inherently better than it's predecessor thanks to its distinct lack of a subtitle. And that's really where I'd place this movie: Better than The Lost World, not as good as the Original.

And this movie really entertained me. A lot. I left the theater laughing and smiling, and was happy I'd seen it. It's not a high quality movie, and if I felt like picking on it, I would have no end of material to tear apart, but I went in hoping to see a quick little dinosaur adventure, and that's what I got. Briefly, a few points:

• The prologue was absurd and contrived, but it got them onto the island quickly. Give a reason to get them onto the island, suggest that Raptors could communicate, and put them on the island. I laughed at it, but I didn't care, because what I went to see was the escape from the island. They could have all been dropped onto the island with parachutes for the sole purpose of escaping and I would have been satisfied.
• If I were a woman, I would probably be a little irritated by my representation in this movie.
• There are actually a few interesting sequences of dialogue. The most interesting of which, in my mind, was an interesting comparison between the Astronaut archetype and the Astronomer archetype.
• And finally, it's a movie for the attention span of a three year old. And the movie knows this, and it admits this, and it makes a great joke about it. You'll laugh yourself silly.

It was by far the most mindless fun I've had in a long time. Better than The Mummy Returns or Swordfish or even Atlantis. But all it gets is a 3/5, sandwiched between the 4/5 I'd give the original and the 2/5 I'd give The Lost World.

Fight Club is a great movie, and you should go see it right now (I know, I thought it would suck from the previews too -- but it's not what it seems, so go see it). Check out this mock up emergency flight card used in the movie. It's highly entertaining, and as even funnier with the context of the movie.

When I went to Renaissance Faire (almost two years ago, now), I saw a play called Testaclese & the Sack of Rome. It was hilarious. You can order that and other "Lost Episodes of Shakespeare" from their site. I recomend you do so immediately.

One of my favorite things about Anime Expo every year is the anime music videos. Check out Anime Music Video Review for news on the amv "scene". If you like anime and like music, you'll love these.

Over here we have an article from Newsweek which talks about the impending PS2 release (in Japan at least). It's a pretty good article for the masses, but skims over other things that I'm interested in. Damn I want one of those sleek black puppies.

Last night I went out with ResComp and saw fight club at Wheeler. Frankly, it was nothing like I expected. I don't know what I expected, but what I got wasn't what I expected. And that's good, because all I know about what I expected is that I expected I wouldn't like it. Which I didn't, because I did like it a fair amount.

Pitt's performance reminds me of his performance in 12 Monkeys, which is, of course, one of my favorite movies. There's a lot to like about Fight Club, from numerous jokes, to "Flashback Humor", to human sacrifices. I recomend you check this movie out, considering it's been added to my "to purchase" queue.

Today I was in the office, and a couple of random sites got thrown around. First, we had http://www.www.com, which is apparently The World's Largest Internet Broadcasting Co., though I've never actually heard of them. Next, we came to the site of Alex Chiu. I saw this guy and his immortality rings on the Daly Show. The scary thing is, this guy is very serious. And finally, we came to Time Cube. I didn't actually read this site, but it's ugly. It looked like it had many little tips for longer life (or something).