So finally saw Speed Racer (the 2008 live-action version, not the original 60s anime) tonight. When this movie came out, I was definitely interested in seeing it, but then many reviews were middling to bad, so I didn’t. The Wachowskis are somwhat polarizing filmmakers these days, and have a lot to live up to (and live down) after the Matrix series went from excellent (1st) to good (2nd) to somewhat mediocre (3rd). But V for Vendetta was also excellent (IMHO), so whatevs – most other filmmakers would be completely jealous to have only a *couple* of those movies in their CV, after all.

Anyway, this movie takes in a lot of the original anime’s plot devices (yes, Chim-Chim is here) and I was definitely pleased to see a scene where they go through all the Mach 5’s special devices (but they never used the Ctrl-G ‘Homing Bird’? They used to use that all the time in the anime!). Racer X of course is key to the plot, and he doesn’t disappoint, either. The look of the cars varies from ‘shiny Hot Wheels surrounded by CGI’ to semi-real looking (when the humans are in them or driving them on “normal” streets).

The movie itself owes a LOT to Pixar (Monsters, Inc and The Incredibles most notably for the factory scenes and the Racer family neighboorhood/house/school/etc.). It also definitely takes from at least two PS2 videogames I own – Kinetica (robot battle-racing) and XG3: Extreme-G Racing (hyper-powered motorcycles with weapons) – both games are played on crazy tracks that soar up/down/multiple dimensions/aerial/underwater/you name it. Props must also be given to drift racing/dirt track racing in general (given the way they drive the cars almost horizontally a lot of the time) and the old standby – Initial D, which I’m sure the Wachowskis have watched at least most of. In the big rally race mid-movie, some of those crazy mountain races look a LOT like the way Initial D shows its crazy mountain racing (the latter’s animation being far more primitive, however).

Finally, there is a lot of IGPX here too (a recent anime from 2005) in the look and feel of the racetracks, especially the Fuji race – and the battling between the cars during the race.

As you’d expect, the races themselves are very well done and crazy to watch, and the movie doesn’t try to oversell the characters, either – unlike the mostly cheesy Racer family seen in the anime. I would say the Racers are as appropriate for the story as The Matrix’ characters – without the speechmaking every 15 minutes by Morpheus of course :). What was a bit sad was that actor Emile Hirsch (who plays Speed) was BORN the same year I graduated from high school – DOH! I guess you can’t win them all. The usual anime ‘challenges’ confront Speed and the rest to varying degrees – *almost* insurmountable odds, increasingly maniacal opponents, crisis-whew-bigger-crisis-whew, etc. – But it moves along fairly well and has a bit of fun even with camera asides in a few tiny scenes.

In summary, I was far more entertained by this movie than say, Avatar – even though the latter is of course way more advanced effects-wise. Even having seen some of the SR anime before as a kid (probably 30+ years ago) didn’t really spoil anything. This is a great movie, and i’d definitely see it again on the big screen (Cinerama or midnight movie at The Egyptian, anyone?) I watched it this time at home on my computer……

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Watched Pirates of Silicon Valley again (all the way through this time – only had seen bits and pieces of it before). It’s not the world’s most riveting film in a second watching, but it’s decent (more so if you are a computer nerd, definitely). If you didn’t already know – it’s basically a TNT-made movie, the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates – with ancillary players including Steve Wozniak, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen and a few other assorted personalities. Woz and Ballmer take turns narrating it, depending on whether the movie focuses on Apple or Microsoft at any given point. The movie basically covers the period in time from the very earliest days of Apple and Microsoft in the mid-late 70s, up until about 1998.

This is an interesting film for me on so, so many levels:

a) Watching what goes on in this movie (and having read a bit on the subject of Silicon Valley craziness elsewhere) and by virtue of simply having worked in the software industry the last 12+ years – it still to this day boggles my mind as to the money flying around. With Apple and Microsoft – it’s at the level beyond what most COUNTRIES have, let alone personal fortunes – really! How many countries can you name that have $40B+ in the bank like Microsoft does? Not bloody many, barring our own, maybe Canada, and possibly some of Western Europe and Japan? It’s just beyond the ability to comprehend.

b) It’s not completely clear how many actual situations in this movie are ‘factual’ – and they sure don’t paint a nice picture of Steve Jobs (Gates gets off a bit easier in my view, because he gets to be the ‘business nerd’ that doesn’t care about saving the world and then points out Jobs’ hypocrisy on this point to his face in a short, but effective outburst) – but in a recent speech (2006), Woz noted that they got the real feel and gist of what happened all but exactly right. The fact that this movie is already over 10 years old, the events in it already over 20-30+ years old makes ME feel old – doh!

Side comment – Dr. Edward Roberts, creator of the Altair 8800 (the home computer Gates and Allen wrote their first software for) passed away earlier this month – RIP.

c) I guess this movie in many ways crystallizes what I perceive as core dysfunctions (and crazy advantages) the tech industry has and to some extent, still enjoys – Certainly most corporate environments end up creating ’empire builder’ people who care most about getting to the top and lording it over the rest of us – that’s not exclusive to the tech industry by any means (nor are egomaniacs – sadly that’s a human problem, not a tech problem). But on the other hand, if a tech company is driven and (definitely) lucky at being in the right niche at the right time, the acceleration from bootstrap to crazy wealth happens in such a short time it’s not to be believed. Along the way, many yes-men and bottom feeders manage to attach themselves for the ride, and naive people in at the start may be left behind (through a combination of their own ignorance/personality, coupled with key people deliberately taking some advantage). The old adage ‘looking out for #1‘ applies in many ways across the tech industry – mostly neutral, but some crazy good (for a lucky, often early few) and some actually really bad in a few cases.

d) I remember from dot-com days when I would sometimes look around the office and muse whether the founders were in it for ‘building the best software x we could build’ – or just for the money/IPO cashout – or some ego thing, or something completely different and not apparent. I never did figure it out, although certainly people cashed out quite well, and we did have a great product for a time, too.

I guess the moral of the Apple/Microsoft story is ‘watch your back, because just when you think you’ve conquered everyone and established yourself as untouchable – someone is poised to knock you right off the mountaintop’.

Certainly just when Jobs thought he had obtained the crown jewels from Xerox (the ‘rich neighbor/open back door’ analogy Gates makes – pretty spot on, whether or not he actually said it), Gates was there to take them away and move in a completely different (and far more lucrative) direction. It helped enormously that Gates also built a monopoly (which they milk to this day), but those parameters weren’t apparent until much later and not to Jobs until it was too, too late.

To me, the bigger lesson (which I think in many companies has yet to be learned) is ‘most people don’t care about building an empire, they just want to be treated well, paid a decent wage and valued for their input and contributions (dependent on role).’ It’s too bad that money, egos, and turf battles often obscure this simple fact and make far too many people’s lives otherwise unhappy for no good reason.

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more LEGO video fun – these are all music videos – but surprisingly, they missed The White Stripes one (see earlier post)?

enjoy…

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So I finally watched Akira recently. This is one of the anime movies that started it all, way back in 1988. It shares many (now) typical anime plot devices (angry head cop going-it-alone against the system, devil-may-care central characters that live (and often die) completely in the moment, a post-apocalpytic Neo-Tokyo that has more than one section of the city living in all but anarchy, subtle yet pervasive technology throughout everything the characters see and experience, etc.) – many of these themes, however, originated in *this* movie, so small wonder these influences persist to this day – Akira is by far among the best anime I’ve seen to date.

Like the first Ghost In The Shell movie, this one doesn’t seem to have any CGI in it – given that TRON and The Last Starfighter weren’t too many years before this movie, the lack of CGI (or, CGI integrated into anime) isn’t very surprising. The scenery and drawings are fairly impressive with a meticulous attention to detail, and the characters are drawn with a wide range of emotion throughout.

There are definite external inspirations within Akira in turn. The super-bikes all the main biker gang characters own are obviously influenced by the TRON light-cycles (and 80s ‘crotch rocket’ street bikes from the real world of the same era). And there has to be a shout-out given to Escape From New York (and similar but far cheesier early 70s post-apocalyptic sci-fi) as influential upon the burned-out city in Neo-Tokyo.

Without revealing very much – essentially one of the main biker-gang members, Tetsuo, is inadvertently exposed to a mutant on the run from a secret army agency. This exposure (of course) begins to create powers in this kid and one can begin to predict what happens next – although it’s still not near as predictable as you might think, and just when you think the movie is ending, another plot twist moves in another direction – nice!

To repeat, definitely one of the best anime I’ve seen yet – others have amazing animation/CGI but largely flat characters (Appleseed); interesting stories that sadly create inherent plot contradictions over time that aren’t resolved (Witch Hunter Robin); or very simplistic (but fairly entertaining) plots in a completely fantastical setting (Mars Daybreak – all hail talking Belugas!). Akira stands way above all of those – if you only ever see one anime – make it this one.

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Came across an amusing article on Salon the other day – “Why it’s OK to love Styx” – Hmmm.

So for me, this band hit it big about the time I was attending Cub Scout Camp around 6th grade – we were all ‘Renegades‘ that summer to be sure – there were of course the obligatory older Boy Scouts around with at least a few boom boxes blasting this out nonstop (along with Queen and the rest – what would American junior high schools have been without ‘We Will Rock You‘? I submit – unsuccessful at most sports! And to think, all those conservative hicks were cheering a song written by THE most flamboyant – in every sense of the word – rock singer of all time – Fredde Mercury – the man who wrote the book on ‘mustache‘ – life works in strange ways, no? :))

Anyway, back to Styx. This article uses too many big words (zeitgeist? This is STYX, for pete’s sake) to get across a great point – F the people who criticize your music taste! And AS one of those critics for nearly all of the time I’ve loved music (ask Kerewin about the never-ending slagging of Huey Lewis and Oasis – the latter being no-talent poseur turds who really DESERVE slagging) I certainly have no room to judge. There were some rocking Styx tunes, although later stuff like the attempted apocalyptic/Orwellian Mr. Roboto was done far better, later, by Queensryche and others – Styx was simply too cheesy.

Every so often one of their songs comes up though – semi-regularly over in K-Land where a local cover band plays at least ‘Come Sail Away’ every night I’ve seen them – and plays it well, despite lack of keyboards. I’m convinced ‘Suite Madame Blue‘ is a Judas Priest ripoff but whatevs. Steal from the masters, not from losers, I always say.

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Haven’t blabbed about music in some time, so here goes. What are people listening to? Of late, I’ve actually tried some new(er) bands out – since I never listen to the radio, and don’t drive very much – I tend to rely on album reviews from The Stranger, The Weekly, occasionally Willamette Week, or random articles from the ‘Net as they come along. Some good stuff of late includes

People Eating People (seattleite too!);
Fruit Bats
Le Loup
Blue Scholars

and for the old school, have been getting back into Saga (sorry, Kirk :)) and even good ol’ Wall of Voodoo. gotta love Stan Ridgway!

tried (and failed) – Owl City – but this review is way harsher than I would have been – I just thought he was too derivative of the original synth bands first time around.

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Generally speaking, I’ve loved animation since well, forever. Over the past several years, besides the rise of Japanese anime in US pop-culture, another worthwhile offshoot of animation has been a variant of (arguably) good ol’ claymation – except with Lego bricks. Saw this Lego Matrix homage today, reminded me of the White Stripes Lego video of several years ago – enjoy!

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